Friday, November 8, 2013

No NaBloPoMo

Usually November is the month where I participate in NaBloPoMo, however I am not doing it this year.  As you've noticed, I haven't even blogged since March.  So, instead of posting everyday in the month of November, how about November is just the month I return to blogging.  I doubt anyone even reads this anymore, but I'm terrible at keeping a journal, so I'm going to try to update more often so I at least have documentation that I was alive and when I spent my life doing.

Below are a couple of book reviews.  I haven't been reading hardly at all the last couple of months which is strange and just WRONG to me, so hopefully I'll get back to reading and reviewing books.

The biggest reason I haven't really been blogging is that we bought a house and have been moving, unpacking and getting settled the past few months.  I'm torn whether to post pictures of my house as it was before we moved in, as it is now, or wait and post a room at a time as I do the necessary changes getting each room as I like it....Maybe I'll do all three.   Before that, here is a quick history of the house.  It is an older home that sat empty for 2 years before an investor bought it, gutted it, and completely refinished it (flipped it). 

Here are pictures of my house before we bought it; staged for selling with furniture that isn't mine (sigh).  However I hate the paint color and they painted every single room, walls and ceiling, in the same boring color (ugh).  So my biggest project will be repainting with color on the walls and repainting the ceilings white.  I've got one room totally done, and at least the ceiling in the living room/kitchen done.  But I've still got so much to do! (Sorry the photo's are terrible.  I am really a bad photographer.




















And the BEST part of the house:
THE POOL!

I am so incredibly lucky to have a pool in the back yard.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE my house!


Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for MeaningMan's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a wonderful book.  So well written and the story is incredible.  Very thought provoking.  I think I may need to reread the section on logotherapy, my psychoanalysis vocabulary is a little rusty, and there were a few passages I may need to study to really get it.  I love his view of life and how to be happy we must find meaning.  My favorite aspect is the idea that every man's meaning is different and no one can declare "_____ is the meaning of life for every person on earth"  I truly believe in the individual and so of course that would mean that the meaning of life is an individual thing.  This trick is finding our own meaning, which is not so easy.



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Book Review: The Host

The Host (The Host, #1)The Host by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Second reading.  Read with Jerry.  I love this book.  I love sci-fi and romance and the best is when they are combined, like in this book.  Awesome awesome book!!

First reading: February 23, 2009



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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Book Review: The Goose Girl

The Goose Girl (The Books of Bayern, #1)The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The book was in three parts, of which I really enjoyed parts 2 and 3.  Part 1 (The beginning of the story) was really difficult for me to enjoy and it took forever for me to get into this book.  The beginning felt like every other princess story I've ever heard.  Princess who doesn't fit the mold of the perfect stereotypical princess and is a little rebellious. A wicked or unloving mother. A father loves her but is tragically taken away. A little bit of magic mixed in, etc. (I will say, don't be too put off by my dislike of Part 1.  I was a necessary set up to the rest of the story, and I just wasn't really in the mood for a princess story and it's also not my favorite genre to begin with)

Luckily in part 2, the story becomes original and very cool. I love journey stories.  This one had both a physical journey as well as the journey of the character of the princess.  She grows up and figures out who she is and what is her destiny so to speak. I really liked it.  Even the love story felt like a happy coincidence rather then happening because of 10 different miraculous events.

I liked it.



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Saturday, January 5, 2013

We're home now!

Short update.  We did find a place.  We just decided to rent a place for about 6 months while we figure out where to live and if we want to buy, build, or live in our house that we own, but currently rent out.

Anyway, we are very excited to be in our own place, and we're just busy busy trying to unpack and not freeze to death (it's been between 2 and about 15 degrees everyday this week, yuck!)