Category Archives: books

Love Thursday: Lots to Love

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You’ll have to forgive me for not being able to come up with coherent post tonight.  It stormed last night, which meant I was up with Crazy, our dog, for 2 hours.  I’m tired- so let’s talk about the random things I’m loving right now:

1) The fact that So You Think You Can Dance starts back up today! That show is my guilty pleasure for summer!

2) The book Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal   I started reading this last night and can’t put it down- really well written and an amazingly compelling story.

3) This hot weather (which I will love even more when the Hubs puts in our air conditioning).

4) Shopping for a new-to-us car. I love car shopping- the research, the negotiating, the fun of figuring out what to get!  We are looking for mid-sized SUVs with a 3rd row if anyone has any suggestions!  The key- needs to be around or under $20K to stay within our budget.

5) That fact that I get to see Red, TBO & Baby Lala this weekend for Baby L’s baptism!  We’re spending all day Saturday with family, I have a pretty dress and my kids will get to have a ball with their cousins.

6) We’re finally thisclose to getting resolution on the Hub’s job situation- cannot wait for that!

7) The Hubs went back to work after being so sick today. Love that man, but it was time for him to get out of the house.

What are you loving today?

Love Thursday: The Random Edition

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I’ve been sitting here for the past 30 minutes trying to figure out what to write about tonight.  The fact of the matter is, I’m exhausted.

The kids, thank God, are finally healthy enough for Mary to come back full time.  But the Bean- oh, the Bean- is wearing me down.  I forgot just how batshit crazy almost 3 year old;s can be.  The most difficult phase with Scorch was this age too, so I know it’ll pass- but difficult for Scorch meant a grand total of a half a dozen crazy meltdowns.  Bean averages 4 of those a day.  I love so very very much, but she’s making me crazy.  She’s fighting us over everything, screaming the house down and  hitting her brother.  The Hubs and I haven’t lost it yet with her, but she is going to bed a good 30 minutes early every night for the sake of our sanity.

So, that’s the long way of saying I don’t have it in me to come up with a gushy, funny post today.  I love my kids and I’m thankful for them, but I’m just as thankful for bed time and ice cream tonight!  But, there are a few random things I’m loving right now:

1) I got invited to a Post-Rapture Looting Party- where we’re invited to take all the good stuff left behind by those called up to Heaven.  I laughed for 5 minutes over this.

2) I am taking 3 hours of me time tomorrow to shop for Baby Lala’s Baptism! Sweet baby girl is doing wonderfully- growing fast, smiling & laughing. I can’t wait to get to hold her again in a few weeks!

3) Between my travels and the kids being sick, I’ve been able to read a lot lately:

  • I read the first two books in the Millennium Trilogy- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo & The Girl Who Played with Fire.  I liked them both, although the first one had a lot of financial crime info that I had to slog my way through. The second one was a much faster read!
  • The Scorch Trials– This is the 2nd book in a series that started with The Maze Runner.  Again, I liked this book better then the first and am looking forward to reading how this all gets tied up!
  • The Brave– I normally like this author (Nicholas Evans) very much.  But this one wasn’t as good as most of his works- the characters weren’t nearly fleshed out enough and the plot harped upon in the summary (Iraq veteran accused of horrible war crimes) was barely touched upon.
  • Past Perfect by Susan Isaacs- another author I normally love with a book that felt flat. One of my biggest annoyances in books/TV shows/movies is when the main character doesn’t tell the people around him/her what they are doing for no good reason and then get stuck in horrible situations because they didn’t speak up. That happened a lot in this book, so I spent most of my time reading this yelling at the main character in my head.
  • The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons.  I have no idea why I got this book about WWII in Russia, but I generally liked it. But lordy, it was depressing!  Not something I’ll be in a hurry to read again, but it kept my attention.
  • Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver.  This book was recommended to me by the Children’s Librarian at our local library, so I checked it out and I’m glad I did.  It’s a YA novel about a 17 year old girl who gets to re-live the last day of her life 7 times to get it right.  At first I didn’t like it- the main characters were harsh and the look at high school was pretty unflinching- but then I got sucked right in. Yeah- the kids were mean, but they were honest and the book didn’t pull any punches.

4) I was asked today to be a Running Buddy for Girls on the Run at a 5K walk/run in 2 weeks. I’m so excited about this because I’m hoping it’ll be the kick in the butt I need to start running again. Maybe this time I’ll enjoy it!

5) The sunset tonight is gorgeous (pardon the quality, best I could get with my cell phone). I’m so glad we have green trees around again.

Sing, Sing a Song…

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This has been one of those busy weeks where life just doesn’t stop.  Tuesday we dealt with a circuit problem in the house which left half my house without power.  Not the end of the world- just annoying and a little worrying when your handymen friends are say things like “I don’t think there is a fire in your walls…”.   Thankfully there were no fires, just a relatively small problem that took us 12 hours to locate.  Our friend who finally figured it out was rewarded with beer and a game (or 12) of Baseball on the Wii until late at night. I felt like I was in college again, only with a bigger TV, better beer and cooler gaming console.

Then last night I had a meeting after work.  I don’t get out often without kids, so I milked this meeting for all it’s worth.  I picked up take out, I went shopping. I stayed out late because I could and I enjoyed every minute of the silence.

My family is many wonderful things- but they aren’t quiet.  Ever. And if they are, I’m scared because that means they are doing something they shouldn’t and don’t want to draw attention.  Like the other night when the Bean went into my room because she wanted to “read” to Mooch, our cat.  After a few minutes when I stopped hearing her talking I went in to check and found her, and the cat’s paws, covered with Vaseline.  The cat was, as you can imagine, thrilled.

I have to admit, I’m just as guilty as the kids of being loud. I talk to myself, sing to myself, talk to the kids or Hubs or the animals all the timeThe only time I’m ever quiet really is when I’m reading- of which I’ve done a lot of this week.* Sometimes the loudness is a good thing.  Like tonight when the Bean was fake sobbing over some injustice before bed (aka: her stalling tactics didn’t work).  As soon as she started in, I started signing loudly to drown her out.  Scorch was with us, so he started singing backup for me as I made up crazier and crazier lyrics until we were all laughing and the Bean was finally ready for bed.

The moment was capped completely when we were done and Scorch looks at me says “Mom- you have a horrible voice.” And the Bean pipes up and says “yeah- you bad.”  They are right- I do and I am, but I’m still going to keep belting out the tunes anyhow.
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This week I’ve managed to read 4 books:

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.  I wanted to like this story, I really did. But it was just blah. A long book about a whole lot of nothing.
SpyGlass by Maria V. Snyder.  This is the 6th book I’ve read by her and I still don’t understand why I like them so much, but I do! Quick easy reads.
Matched by Ally Condie. A dystopian YA novel about a world in the future where everything is perfect. All your choices are made for you, including what you eat, who you marry, what job you do, etc.  But what happens when you want to make your own choices?  A little slow, but quite good. I guess this is the first in a trilogy, so I’ll be interested to read the next two when they come out!
Third Degree by Greg Iles- Eh. It kept my attention and I read it quickly (started it last night and finished it this evening), but there wasn’t a lot of meat to this novel.  Most of his other thrillers are more layered- but they are also part of a series. This was a one off and took place over about 12 hours, so you never really delved into the character deeply.

Walter

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I found out I was pregnant with Scorch in September, so come Christmas time I was looking for an appropriate  gift for the Hubs.  Given our history of pregnancy loss I didn’t want to get him anything huge.  Nothing that said “Daddy” on it, no baby clothes (I didn’t let any of those into the house until I hit 24 weeks)- just something little that marked that Christmas as special in a small way.

Too bad that’s harder then it seems.

A few weeks before Christmas I was in NYC with my mom.  We were browsing in some shops waiting for our bus to take us back home when I found the perfect gift.  It was a book- Walter the Farting Dog. You see, the Hubs isn’t exactly the most sophisticated man when it comes to what tickles his funny bone.  And farts always, always make him laugh.  Heck, that book, about a dog who saved his family’s valuable by farting on burglars breaking in to his home, made me laugh out loud in the store.  So home the book went with me as ideal gift for the Hubs for the holidays.

I thought the book was a novelty, but it turns out that the books are award winners!  There are 5 books in the series and we are the proud owners of 3 of them.  While they are crude (even when we substitute the word “toot” for “fart”), the kids love them.  And the Hubs can’t get through reading any one of the books we own without stopping because he’s laughing so hard, which makes the kiddos laugh harder which makes my night just about perfect.

My First Love

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Well, wasn’t that a lovely self-pitying post yesterday?  On to brighter things today…books.

I’ve been reading voraciously ever since I joined the library this past summer.  I read anywhere from 8 to 10 books a month.  My problem is that I find an author and then read everything I can by them.  While this usually gives me a lot to read, it also keeps me pretty limited in what I read. I know I’m missing out on some gems.

Everything I’ve read lately is good (Nora Roberts, Iris Johansen, Jodi Picoult, Jeffrey Deaver, & James Patterson off the top of my bed)- but nothing has sucked me and held me by the throat.  I want to read a book that I can’t put down.  A book that begs me to steal snatches of time to read it- while I should be cooking or sleeping or, yes, even playing with the kids.  The last series of books to do that was The Hunger Games- I read all three books in 5 days.

I’ll read just about any genre- historical, sci-fi, chick lit, dystopian, mystery. So please, hit me with your best recommendations!

Bee-bo

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There are two things we have been doing a lot lately with the Bean:

1) Talking about Santa coming. That jolly old elf is an awesome, awesome threat this time of year- all I have to do is say “Santa’s watching…” and the kids straighten right up

2) Reading her Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton. It’s been her favorite book forever and it gets read at least nightly by her father.  When the Hubs is done reading it to her, he immediately starts blowing raspberries on her bee-bo (the name the baby hippo in the book calls his belly button) and they laugh until she gets hiccups.

Somehow in her 2 year old mind, the Bean has gotten the two things- Santa and her bee-bo- combined.  Anytime we see Santa, she asks two things- is Santa coming to our house (yes) and will Santa blow on her bee-bo when he does (no).  This bee-bo blowing is a major concern because she will tell you in no uncertain terms that Santa should not blow on her belly.  Only daddy can do that.

I’m not sure why Beaner thinks Santa is a belly-button-blowing creep, but it’s hysterically funny to see her cover up her belly each and every time she see’s him!
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Lala had another very quiet, uneventful night last night and day today!  Her jaundice is a tad bit worse, but it’s not in to the scary range yet, so the docs just added more billi lights to her tanning bed.  Red got to see her a few times and hopefully soon she  can start changing her diaper and taking her temp.

 

 

Book Worm

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Tonight I had a date night with Scorch and I couldn’t be more thankful for it.

We both needed new books, so we drove the 25 minutes to small branch of my county’s library system that is truly a hidden gem.  Over the past week I have gotten the latest Alex Cross novel by James Patterson and the latest books by Jeffrey Deaver, Nelson DeMille and Jodi Picoult.  Books in general make me giddy. Brand spanking new books by some of my favorite authors? They make me euphoric!

Best of all, Scorch shares my love of reading.  He was thrilled to get a few new dinosaur books along with a Junie B Jones book he’d never read. We had a ball sitting in the empty library at 6:30 looking thru shelves of books to see what he may like.  When we got home, the Hubs was putting Beaner to bed so we got to dive right in while eating a late dinner together. After dinner, it was time for bed, which meant more time to read together after teeth were brushed and PJs were put on. Did you know that paleontologists think that only 7% of all dinosaur species have been discovered? Me neither- but that fact just about caused Scorch to pass out because he was worried there weren’t going to be any fossils left for him to find when he got older.

Scorch has pretty much learned all his letters, so now he’s learning how they fit together to make words. He told me today that it’s like magic and I couldn’t agree more!

Book Worm

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Forgive my absence. I started reading a new-t0-me series of books on Tuesday night and just came up for air tonight.

I jumped on The Hunger Games bandwagon and am so so glad I did. Yes, I realize these books are classified as Young Adult- but damn, they are *good*.

Book 1, The Hunger Games, sucked me right in. I chose to skip Spin class this morning in order to do an hour on the elliptical instead so I could read more of Book 2, Chasing Fire, in peace.  And I may or may not have spent the vast majority of my work day today finishing Book 2 and Book 3, Mockingjay. It’s been a long, long time since a book has sucked me in like that and it was wonderful! My only regret is that I finished them so fast- I wish I had savored them more.

The Hubs banned me from buying more books, so I’ve joined the library and have been having a blast re-reading old favorites and finding new authors to love. Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series remains my all time favorite series. I revisit Jamie, Claire, Bree & Rodger at least once a year- it’s almost like catching up with old friends now. While the Bean’s middle name, Claire, is technically after my great-grandmother, Claire Randall was a huge influence on the choice as well. 😉

I’ve got three new books to pick from now- all by authors I haven’t read before. Hoping there is another winner in this pile!