Day 78

1. I enjoyed reading most of The Backyard Homestead

2. What else? Finished Ender's Game, dentist with Daniel and errands around town, spent the afternoon catching up on projects, Top Gear and pizza with Daniel in the evening.

Day 218 (Monday)

1.-8. Andrew, Daniel & Jacob and I went swimming/diving, Sam P came along too and we also ran into some friends from church, thus a couple pictures of  Christie & John. It was an exciting day for Jacob as his swimming has improved enough in the last couple of weeks that he got to go off the diving board.

2. God of course, knows my needs and I started reading this book last week before I knew I needed to read it. ;)

3. What else? Working outside, piano lessons, spare ribs, watermelon, tomato cucumber salad, bread and garlic green beans for dinner, some reading (I finished The Venetian Affair - a commie spy novel written during the cold war), some Olympics and some yoga.

Day 85

Books to read this year?

I just posted a comment on Janelle's blog on a post asking for book recommendations. This is what I wrote:

Sara

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

February 21, 2012 at 11:18 pm · Reply

I don’t read a lot of fiction, but if you are looking for easy to read non-fiction I would suggest books by Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers) Also, History of the World in Six Glasses (1.Beer, 2.Wine, 3.Coffee, etc) is fascinating. Julia Child’s My Life in France is great if you haven’t read that already. Last year I also enjoyed Moonwalking with Enstein (memory whizzes) and The Geography of Bliss. Looking forward to hearing about your finds!

This has got me thinking about books to read this year. And while I'm always on the look out for interesting non-fiction books, I'm also always trying to branch out and read more fiction....

I still need to finish Pilgrim's Progress. I keep getting sidetracked!
Alice keeps reminding me to try a Jasper Fforde book. I guess I should find out which one...
From talking to Joanna, and reading the comments on Janelle's post, I'm thinking about trying Hunger Games. I need to find someone to loan me a copy, I guess!
I'm also getting the urge to read a Grace Livingston Hill book, just because it's been so long, and they are incredibly fluffy for times when I don't want to think....

Psmith & Miss Halliday

This made me laugh out loud the other day....

Psmith, going into Miss Clarkson's Employment Bureau, has just become acquainted with a Miss Halliday leaving the office. After already meeting with her on the streets a few hours earlier, he is eager to learn more about her.

"Is that young lady a nurse?" he asked.
"Do you want a nurse?" inquired Miss Clarkson, at once the woman of business.
"I want that nurse," said Psmith with conviction.
"She is a delightful girl", said Miss Clarkson with enthusiasm. "There is no one in whom I would feel more confidence in recommending to a position. She is Miss Halliday [....] She is a charming, warm-hearted, impulsive girl....But you will hardly want to hear all this."
"On the contrary," said Psmith, "I could listen for hours. You have stumbled upon my favourite subject."
Miss Clarkson eyed him a little doubtfully, and decided that it would be best to reintroduce the business theme.
"Perhaps, when you say you are looking for a nurse, you mean you need a hospital nurse?"
"My friends have sometimes suggested it."
"Miss Halliday's greatest experience has, of course, been as a governess."
"A governess is just as good," said Psmith agreeably.
Miss Clarkson began to be conscious of a sensation of being out of her depth.
"How old are your children, sir?" she asked.
"I fear," said Psmith "you are peeping into Volume Two. This romance has only just started."

From P.G. Wodehouse's Leave it to Psmith.

Victoria, Sophie and Thanksgiving

Thoughts from today ( and no it's not all related to my stupid gallbladder)

***
Went and saw the naturapath today to make sure she didn't have any tricks up her sleeves. She gave me some stuff and said if it's going to work, I should be able to eat Thanksgiving dinner. Which would be beyond awesome. But I'm not counting on it; I think maybe if I had started on the stuff right away might have worked, but it's been a month now...So I'm still seeing the surgeon tomorrow.

***
At the last visit though, the naturapath gave me some stuff to make it a little easier to eat,. It also helps that the gastroenterologist gave me pain pills that melt in my mouth. Between those, I can eat some white bread and white rice with my broth.So I think I am feeling a little better because I'm finally getting something besides soda.

***
I'm currently reading a book about the lives of Queen Victoria's daughters. This is what I've learned so far.
1. If you go live in your husbands country, don't offend them by inisiting your country is better in everything. It makes it hard to get along with your in-laws.
2. Don't compare your children to each other.
3. Don't call them ugly.
4. Don't be born a princess.
5. If you can't avoid step 4, then try to fall in love with a royal someone who has a good position.
6. If not, screw the family. You'll be happier.
7. Don't give your children the same environment to grow up in that you hated growing up in.

Also, fun fact. Apparently Alberta, Canada was named after Princess Louise. When her husband was the Queens ambassador in Canada, he chose it as it sounded better than Louiseland, or something like that. Apparently, Alberta was her second name.

***
We have a new kitty. Rather a stray that showed up on our doorstep about a month ago. My mother swore that there was no way we were going to keep a ninth cat. But Mom didn't realize just how cunning this new cat (Sophie) was. Sophie, being smart, decided to befriend and be nice to the one person in our family who didn't consider himself to have his own cat, my dad. Yup, she won Dad over. The man that earns her bread and butter or really, her kitty nibbles and litter. Smart move, Sophie.

***
We are enjoying tremendously the new HULU show, SPY. I know, I never imagined it could be so good, but if you like some British humour, than try it out.

***
Thanksgiving is in two days! Yay. Or that would be in all capitals if I thought I would be eating it. I have resigned myself to drinking a whole bottle of Martinellis as consolation.

Our traditional menu looks something like this:

Relish Tray/Spinach dip/Some other appetizer

Turkey
Stuffing (we totally cheat here and go with Stove Top)
Homemade Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Garlic Green beans
Salad
Creamed Onions (My favorite!)
Homemade Jellied Cranberry (Discovered last year how crazy easy this is to make!)
Fresh Cranberry Orange Relish
Sweet Potatoes (no marshmallows!)
Rolls (sometimes)

Persimmon Pudding (German tradition)
Hard Sauce
Wine Sauce
Pies (apple, pumpkin...)
Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake (the only cheesecake that I love)

Usually my favorite part of dinner is creating the exact right proportions of a little bit of stuffing, onion cream sauce, mashed potatoes and cranberry on my fork. The flavors meld together beautifully.

And then I love persimmon pudding with some hard sauce on it. mmm.

I think I'm going to either stick a plate of food in the freezer and eat it in a week or two. Or I'll just insist on Thanksgiving dinner for my birthday. That sounds good.

Women & Winnie-the-Pooh

 Jacob tells a joke

While digging up potatoes this afternoon, Jacob came wandering by. I told him to grab a shovel for me and then come into the vegetable garden so he could see what I was doing. On his way over we had the following conversation:

Jacob: "Sara, do you want to hear a joke?"

Me: "Yeah, sure".

pause.

Jacob, in his deepest possible voice: "women."

 I laughed, as it was so unexpected.

Jacob: "I just don't know why that is so funny."

We then spent the next few minutes talking about why it's a funny joke. I wasn't much help.

.....
Winnie-the-Pooh

After growing up watching Winnie-the-Pooh my whole life, I am rather embarrassed to admit that I am finally reading it. Jacob and I have been reading through Winnie-the-Pooh in the mornings and my goodness, is it hilarious. It's not just a childrens book. This section made me laugh out loud yesterday morning....

During the flood, Pooh sets out for Piglet's house...

Then he had an idea, and I think that for a Bear of Very Little Brain, it was a good idea. He said to himself:

"If a bottle can float, thena  jar can float, and if a jar floats, I can sit on the top of it, if it's a very big jar."

So he took his biggest jar, and corked it up. "All boats have to have a name," he said, "so I shall cal mine The Floating Bear." And with these words he dropped his boat into the water and jumped in after it.

For  a little while Pooh and The Floating Bear were uncertain as to which of them was meant to be on the top, but after trying one or two different positions, they settled down with the Floating Bear underneath and Pooh triumphantly astride it, paddling vigorously with his feet.

Thankfulness

Things I am thankful for today:

1. For walking into my vision therapy appointment and finding out that I'm getting put onto maintenance! That means I'll be doing 5 minutes a day, 2 times a week (10 minutes total!) instead of the 30-45 minutes, 6 days a week (3-4 1/2 hours a week) which is what I've been doing.... So, so thankful!!!

2. Which also means I am reading. Feeling like I'm finally feasting after fasting from books. I feel like I have six months to make up and it's been wonderful.

 

 3. For malted vanilla ice cream with chocolate flakes. I made some this evening to celebrate #1. It was good.

4. Homegrown ripe tomatoes. Enough said.

5. That my sweet grandfather is giving me one of his "old" cameras. It's really not that old and it's going to suit me just fine. I'm very thankful! In fact if it wasn't for vision therapy, this would be the top of my list!

6. For a 10 year old brother that tells me to come in and say good night. And then he gives me a stuffed kitty to keep me company while I sleep.

7. The Three Stooges. (Bet you weren't expecting that one!) We just discovered there are episodes on Hulu. I grew up watching these guys over and over again. I think when we were sick we watched Three Stooges and Warner Brother cartoons and Marx Brothers non stop. So I thought I had seen them all! But thanks to Hulu, I now know I haven't. Tyler showed us this one tonight and it was pretty clever. The horses were incredibly well trained!

The moors and the theology of writing stories

Over the past week, I've been working on adding a little blog roll page...and I think I'm done for the moment, so it's up! I have a feeling I'll be tweaking it... 

I haven't been able to bring myself to add blogs of people I know. Maybe I'll add a separate section? I don't know, it just seems a little creepy to publicly link to people you know on the internet... of course, is it less creepy to link to people you don't know? So maybe my thinking is backwards...

One blog I enjoy is Attic 24. It's crafty/yarny blog, plus she lives in England. I love international blogs that give you a glimpse into another world. I especially enjoyed one of her latest posts that featured pictures of the moor. I grew up reading Famous Five books (about four kids and a dog in England) that often featured adventures on the moor, so I love seeing pictures of it. Just beautiful.

Another one, Conversion Diary, just had a fantastic article on leading a purposeful life. I feel like I've been seeing a lot of internet buzz along this line, but this post really spoke to me. I had just read recently about the rule of only using dialogue in a story if it moves the story line forward, but hadn't thought about applying it to my life until I read this post.... So what's your story and what's your dialogue?

Also, talking about story writing... While reading Poe, which is written in the first person, I was stuck by the fact that I never seem to read books written in the first person. Twilight was the only book that I could remember reading that stands out in my mind as being written from the 1st person, and it seems like that's becoming really common, whereas formally most books were written in the 3rd person. Or maybe I'm just really unobservant about these things?

If my observation is true though, it makes me wonder about the theology of writing books. In writing narrated by a third person, with the focus being on a) the story and b) the creator,  does this style imitate reality? That we, too, are characters in a story which we are not writing?

It seems like writing in the first person ultimately points to humanism.. Everything in the book revolves around them... they are the center. Which with the decline of Christianity in our country, could explain a movement towards writing in the first person.

Of course, blogs are mostly written in the first person....eeks. So um, never mind, right?

Or it made me wonder if most books (especially older) books were written in the 3rd person so it was much more natural to read it out loud? I dunno!

Paper burning and movie watching

Last week a friend of mine came to my rescue when I told her I wanted to read some more classics. I knew that she had a nice little classics library and she graciously agreed to loan me some.

Well, I just finished Fahrenheit 451 (which if you haven't read, the title is the temperature at which book paper burn, which happens a lot in this book) and my goodness, it was interesting. This particular copy had no less than three introductions by the author. So I kind of felt like the whole plot had been given away by the time I actually got to the story, which finally began on page 33! But it actually didn't give much away...

Anyways, as I was finishing it up tonight, I realized rather surprisingly that the final message was along the same lines as the movie, Nicholas Nickleby, which I had just finished watching (and wow, I love that movie). Of course, both stories have rather different ways of telling it, but ultimately the main characters lose what they have always known  and are forced to begin again. And as the Mr. Crummles, the theater man, so nicely sums it up in the end of the movie:

"In every life, no matter how full or empty one's purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it but to delight in it when it comes. And to add to other people's store of it. What happens if too early we lose a parent, that party on whom we rely for only everything? What did these people do when their families shrank? They cried their tears but then they did the vital thing. They built a new family, person by person. They came to see that family need not be defined merely as though with whom we share blood, but as those for whom we would give our blood"

And Nicholas Nickleby and Guy Montag both rose from the ashes and surrounded themselves with a family.

Parties and figs

So I just got back from a fantastic party and now I'm not feeling sleepy one bit. I've only just really started drinking alcohol regularly {edited to add: like, um, at the most, maybe one drink once a week} (and very moderately for anyone concerned reading this!) and I'm not sure if it winds me up or makes me sleepy. Right now, I'm casually browsing Mr. Boston while I brush my teeth to get an idea of what drinks I might like to try and just to try and wrap my head around what is in the commonest drinks.

I'm also in the middle of revamping my blog design. Sometimes there's a moment when you just realize "This has to change. Now."

After the party I came home and made some cranberry jelly (random, I know) and was glancing though the recipe descriptions in Joy of Cooking and I discovered that the deliciousness of  Northern Africa figs was Cato's clinching argument for invasion. Who knew that the cookbook could also be full of history lessons?

I also read tonight about spiders legs and how they avoid sticking to their own web.

I'm also still finding it fascinating that the amazing Jen of Conversion Diary started following me on Pinterest. I've been lurking on her blog for years so it makes the web seem all of a sudden a little smaller. And I'm feeling guilty that I've never commented on her blog before. I've just never figured out much of a groove for commenting on people's blogs unless I know them. Or maybe I'll stew on the post for a couple of days on a post and then come up with a comment but by then it feels too late...

The weather's just been freezing here. Our garden looks beautiful because the grass is still all green and our flowers are late, but man, would it just stop raining?! I know we are averaging about 10 degrees cooler than normal and I was talking to a friend in Sacramento and it sounds like they are about 15 degrees cooler. Crazy. Yesterday, I even spotted on lone rhododendron flower. They were supposed to be done flowering 6 weeks ago.

I realized today that I'm over 1/5 of the way done listening to War & Peace. I have a hard time listening to the average book on tape as it seems so inefficient, but War & Peace is so big to begin with, and I'm listening to it while I'm doing vision therapy, so it's all okay. I know I would be butchering the names in my head if I read it normally.

Bookiness

So I really haven't been sure about how much to update this blog about my concussions. I personally don't care to read too much about other peoples health, so I've tried to mostly keep it out of here. Which means I haven't been blogging a lot, 'cause not a lot else has been going on.

But then again, this is a record of life (mine), and I don't like it when people just pretend that life is fine and dandy when life isn't fine and dandy. So I do want to write a little about it.

One of the hardest things about this whole concussion thing (it's been almost a month!) is that I can't read. Well, not literally. I'm not typing this blindfolded. But I can't read for long periods of time. It's like getting sick while all your friends are gone a month long retreat without you and you just feel a little lost and forlorn. I don't think I've ever gone a month without reading a book. Even during college crunching there would always be something to escape too, not to mention all the text book reading that happened.

One of the strangest feelings is coming across a book that I want to read and my first instinct is to look it up in the library and put it on hold. And then I realize there's no point to that. BECAUSE I CAN"T READ. And I haven't been to the library in over a month. Ouch.

I once heard (or maybe it's a famous quote) that you can tell the character of a person by his/her bookshelf and I think that's really quite true. One of the first things I do when I visit someones house for the first time is to notice their books. It's really quite a subconscious thing. And I often don't realize I'm standing there reading all of their book titles until I'm halfway down the bookshelf.

For a while, in one of my many "let's see how many different ways I can re-arrange my bedroom" phases I took out my bookcase and put most of my books in dresser drawers (the reason escapes me at the moment). I don't think that lasted more than a couple of weeks as every time I entered my room I felt for a moment lost. Part of me was hidden, in the dresser, and I didn't like it.

Often all I need for motivation or a perk-me-up during the day is a glance at my bookcase. Some title will catch my eye and immediately I'll feel refocused.

Now, since I can't read I'm watching Netflix and documentaries, but there's something just not as satisfying as reading. Something feels like it's missing. The small sense of accomplishment as you finish a page or a chapter. Or maybe I'm just impatient as stories and facts just unfold slower then when you are reading a book.

So hopefully this isn't going to last much longer. My tolerance is slowly going up (thank God). It has been a good for me to learn to relax and find joy in not doing anything. And being joyful, no matter what, is what life in Christ is all about.

*And yes I am posting this at 1:40am. Just had a "midnight" snack with Mums and Scott. Good thing I'm not planning on doing anything tomorrow. :D