At a Weird Place

Hello all,

I haven't posted in a while, about books or otherwise, but it's been because I'm at a weird place in my life right now. I work 40 hours a week at a job that I love and hate, my husband and I have rough patches just about every other day, my almost-2 year old is so keen to make sure that his "terrible two's" is more terrible than anyone else's, and we just got a roommate.

To top it all off, we found out two weeks ago that we're going to be expanding the family by (hopefully only) 1. So, I'm really still just in this phase where I know I'm pregnant but it doesn't really feel real so I don't feel like eating right or exercising right, etc. But, I did do one really huge thing: I quit smoking!! I found out on Tuesday January 17th that I was pregnant, and I quit smoking on Saturday January 21st. When I had my first child, it took me weeks to quit. This time, not even a week!! I'm so stinking proud of myself that I had to tell someone. The problem is that we kept our smoking a bit of a secret. No one knows that we smoked, so it's kind of impossible to get on facebook or something and holler, "I QUIT! WHOO HOOO!" So, I've only gotten to share it with my closest family and friends who did know (aka one of our friends who also smokes, my husband, and my parents who don't give a shit).

The saddest part about it is that reading is something I did while smoking, and now it's kind of hard to pick up a book and want to read it without the cigarette in hand, so it's really cutting down on my reading. And that's sad.

So anyway, I had to tell someone. And that someone is you.

neglect

Hello again. I guess I never did get around to telling ya'll about Christopher Paolini's Inheritance (which was still awesome). I got caught up reading. My favorite author, Tamora Pierce, suggested some books and I've now gone absolutely crazy reading everything. Two new authors to talk about today:

Patricia C. Wrede:
She's not new, by any means, but she's new to me. I read 6 of her books over the last few weeks. She has a four book series called the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which includes Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons. They deal with Cimorene and her friends and foes in the lands surrounding the Enchanted Forest.

They have lots of fun wit. The books poke fun at traditional fairy tales in a loving way. The books are all kind of short, and I got through each of them in 1-2 days (less if I could have read as continuously as I wish I could). I also enjoyed how they ended, which is usually what leaves the biggest impression on me.

She also has a new series called Frontier Magic. So far there are only two books (I believe there is one more coming).

The first is called The Thirteenth Child, and it's about Eff and her family as they move from an alternate reality eastern shore of the United States (of Columbia, not America), to the frontier. Across what I think could be the Mississippi (although it's called the Mammoth River) is a wild land where settlers can go (at their own peril), but it's also full of both magical and non-magical animals. Eff is one of a set of twins, with her brother Lan, who is some magical prodigy because he is the seventh son of a seventh son. Eff, on the other hand, is a thirteenth child, ridiculously un-lucky and destined to be evil. Who knows?

It's an excellent book and I was really excited to read the second one.

The second book is called Across the Great Barrier, in which Eff goes on an expedition, fittingly, across the great barrier that separates the settled east from the wild west. A new problem arises, and of course Eff is right in the middle of it as she struggles to understand her own weird magic.

The second book compounds on the wonderful character development from the first book, bringing us deeper and deeper into their lives. These books were awesome to read, even though I'm not generally a fan of 1st person narratives. Eff is such a laid back little lady that sometimes the plot seems like not much is happening, but it's really just because Eff is not a "freak-out" kind of girl.

The other author Tamora recommended was Maggie Stiefvater. She has written a lot of really great books, and I've read four of them of the last couple weeks. I actually just finished one last night. I'll have my next post be about Maggie and her amazing books. She's got two more that I want to read, but I finally got A Game of Thrones, so I'm definitely reading that next.

Until next time.

Holy Crow!

So so sorry. For a while there, I totally forgot I had a blog. I'm back now and I have a great review coming up. I've spent the better part of the last two weeks going through the entire Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, culminating in the finale Inheritance. It was awesome and I can't wait to tell everyone about it.

Check back soon for that!

The Oscar goes to...

As a follow up to my last post, I decided to go to my work's round 2 of dress up as Sue Sylvester, complete with blonde wig.

Everyone loved it, and I won the (fake)Oscar for "best way to rock a red track suit." I know. It's the achievement of a lifetime. I can die any day now and be fine. Ha.

Glad that the dress up season is over. I'm not super creative, but luckily I have a ridiculously creative mother-in-law who can help me figure all that stuff out.

I've decided that it's time to get our family pictures done for Christmas cards. Last year we just took some of Elijah and put those on, but I think a family one would be nice. Hopefully I can get that scheduled sometime.

dress up - round two

Halloween wasn't even a week ago, and now I get a chance to redeem myself. For Halloween, I went as a "nudist on strike," meaning I wore regular clothes and carried a tiny picket sign.

I get a chance next Tuesday to redeem myself because my office is having a United Way Kick Off Rally, and we have to dress as our favorite TV/movie characters. I've settled on : Hermione Granger. I have brown hair, which can be made bushy. And thanks to my weird brother, who moved out and left everything, I have a wand (I actually gave it to the neighbor, but hopefully he'll lend it back to me). Other than that, I have to find everything else.

My mother in law would help but she never let her kids watch Harry Potter ( because of the witchcraft...oooo), so she has no idea who Hermione is. She suggested June Cleaver, which actually isn't a half bad idea, but considering I've never watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver, it might be hard to pass it off as my favorite TV show.

Anyone have any ideas of characters I could be that I might have some of the costume already in my house somewhere? The thought of having to run around and find all of the clothes to be Hermione is making me really sad. Please please please help me out.