So, the plan was to make this Father's Day extra special because it would be - literally - Pooh's first EVER.
Now, I know what you're thinking: "Tigger was born last March, so last year Pooh had a 'real' Father's Day. Silly Roo..."
But no. No he did not.
For the past 30 years or so, Pooh's family reunion has taken place over Father's Day weekend. We'd show up Thursday evening, and head on back home Sunday morning. So the whole breakfast in bed, here's another tie, special songs at church thing was never part of his life.
Last year, the tribe voted to move reunion to the week after Father's Day so some members of the family could actually come, and the fathers could actually be celebrated in ways that didn't involve threats to pipe down or I'll pull this car over, so help me!
So, like I said, the plan was to make it special since it'd be his first. I was going to get up and make him pancakes (because Pooh loves pancakes more than just about anything else in the world. Besides Tigger and me), but I rolled over to get out of bed and hurt just about everywhere, so that didn't happen.
We went to church where we did not sing "O My Father," which I found more than a little ironic considering the two years previous (not including this year) we had sung it for Mother's Day.
Yeah. I know.
The fathers were treated to a brunch of cinnamon rolls, sausages, milk, and orange juice (which Tigger reportedly drank for his father), and while it was wonderful and sweet it was a bit disappointing that the Snickers "ties" in the kitchen were for the other ward. (I totally would've stolen that, making it fully a not-so-special Father's Day...)
I think the special-est part was getting to Skype my dad and Facetime Pooh's dad, wishing them a Happy Father's Day: something we haven't been able to do since we've been married. With his dad it's always been a, "well, happy Father's Day. Drive safe" as we leave camp and a hurried and sketchy call on my cell while there's still service to my dad on the drive home.
So that was our First Father's Day.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Two In The Hand...
Remember how this blog was supposed to be a book review/rating blog so I could look back and remember why I did or didn't like that one book and why I should or shouldn't recommend it to certain people?
Yeah. I'd forgotten, too.
SO! First of all, I'd like to comment on how sad it is that these two books I'm about to review were the ones to remind me.
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
Set in Brittany back when it was its own entity and feeling the threat of colonialism from the expanding French nation, this is a country torn religiously. While not the main point of the book, it does play a role in the minor conflict between the Catholic Church and the Old Gods - now in "hiding" as "saints" revered by the locals. One of these being Saint Mortaine, or the Old God of Death. Tradition holds that unwanted daughters born despite attempts at abortion are in fact Mortaine's children and that is why they lived. They are feared, reviled, and if they are lucky they make it to Mortaine's abbey where they are trained as assassins, meting out his justice as revealed through their Seer and the Abbess.
One of these young ladies is young Ismae (whose name, I'll admit here, was pretty much THE reason for me reading this book), a young woman given in marriage to a brute of a man who proceeds to beat her when he discovers the scar marking her as a Daughter. She is spirited away by some believers in the Old Gods and taken to the abbey where she becomes an assassin-in-training who's good enough to start going out on assignments, but average enough to be perplexed as to why she was chosen for these tasks.
On her first big assignment she is sent undercover to try and find out who in the Duchess of Brittany's private council is a traitor, and to kill him. Because that's how the Daughters of Mortaine roll. Death is justice, justice is death, yadda yadda.
She's teamed up with the Duchess' half-brother who she unwillingly finds increasingly more attractive and wonderful which makes her hesitate despite being told to kill him on several occasions.
Ok, so because of her rough past with men (abusive father, abusive "husband") she dislikes men in general and this man in particular. Ah, what the heart will do to protect itself.
It honestly got really annoying how much she'd want to touch him, but recoil when he got close, y'know, all that nonsense. But it was literally every interaction with him (and that was a lot, since they were playing "lovers" for their cover), every look, every sound the man made threw her into this bipolar love-sick pandemonium. How did she get anything done??
I figured out who the traitor was long before she did, but stuck it out to see his motives. And they were surprisingly satisfactory and unsatisfactory all at once.
Constant references to sex - while not explicit - and violence make this a teen+ book.
Icons by Margaret Stohl
In the future, we've been visited by aliens. Rather than violently attack everyone in all major cities on all major continents, they just pick one major city per continent and essentially shut it down. Totally. Stopping hearts instantaneously and everything. In North America, that city is L.A. - now referred to as the Hole - and there have been few survivors. Among them are children born on The Day with strange birthmarks which they have always somehow known to keep hidden. Two of them grew up outside the Hole on a small mission and on their birthday they are abducted and taken to the Embassy (the human-run liaison between humans and aliens) where they are tested and finally brought together with the other two kids "like them." Soon after, it is revealed that their existence is not nearly as secret as they'd all grown up thinking and that pretty much everyone wants them for some purpose, though whose is nefarious and whose they should side with they are unsure of.
So, supernatural abilities are cool (who doesn't want to be a superhero?!), except when they all involve emotional telepathy and manipulation. What fun is always knowing what everyone is thinking through their feelings? Think about it...
So, the names also reflect their abilities. I found this to be creative, yet trite. Something I did in middle school when I'd fantasize about writing my own fiction and I'd look up name meanings to match them to my character's personality/abilities.
The drive to find out how they could possibly beat back the alien overlords/work together as a team when they don't even trust each other/etc., was not enough to finish this book. It may have been because I read it immediately after Grave Mercy (which, as I said, I only finished to find out the traitors motives), and so I wasn't willing to go the distance on this one.
Wouldn't recommend it at all. But if I had to rate it, I'd go with pre-teen+. The violence has been minimal (aside from the sadistic teacher, but that's mostly innuendo), swearing minimal, no sexual content (up to page 244), so yeah. If you've got a reader who really wants to experience this dystopian world, go for it. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other books to read. Hopefully I'll enjoy/blog about those.
Yeah. I'd forgotten, too.
SO! First of all, I'd like to comment on how sad it is that these two books I'm about to review were the ones to remind me.
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
One of these young ladies is young Ismae (whose name, I'll admit here, was pretty much THE reason for me reading this book), a young woman given in marriage to a brute of a man who proceeds to beat her when he discovers the scar marking her as a Daughter. She is spirited away by some believers in the Old Gods and taken to the abbey where she becomes an assassin-in-training who's good enough to start going out on assignments, but average enough to be perplexed as to why she was chosen for these tasks.
On her first big assignment she is sent undercover to try and find out who in the Duchess of Brittany's private council is a traitor, and to kill him. Because that's how the Daughters of Mortaine roll. Death is justice, justice is death, yadda yadda.
She's teamed up with the Duchess' half-brother who she unwillingly finds increasingly more attractive and wonderful which makes her hesitate despite being told to kill him on several occasions.
Ok, so because of her rough past with men (abusive father, abusive "husband") she dislikes men in general and this man in particular. Ah, what the heart will do to protect itself.
It honestly got really annoying how much she'd want to touch him, but recoil when he got close, y'know, all that nonsense. But it was literally every interaction with him (and that was a lot, since they were playing "lovers" for their cover), every look, every sound the man made threw her into this bipolar love-sick pandemonium. How did she get anything done??
I figured out who the traitor was long before she did, but stuck it out to see his motives. And they were surprisingly satisfactory and unsatisfactory all at once.
Constant references to sex - while not explicit - and violence make this a teen+ book.
Icons by Margaret Stohl
So, supernatural abilities are cool (who doesn't want to be a superhero?!), except when they all involve emotional telepathy and manipulation. What fun is always knowing what everyone is thinking through their feelings? Think about it...
So, the names also reflect their abilities. I found this to be creative, yet trite. Something I did in middle school when I'd fantasize about writing my own fiction and I'd look up name meanings to match them to my character's personality/abilities.
The drive to find out how they could possibly beat back the alien overlords/work together as a team when they don't even trust each other/etc., was not enough to finish this book. It may have been because I read it immediately after Grave Mercy (which, as I said, I only finished to find out the traitors motives), and so I wasn't willing to go the distance on this one.
Wouldn't recommend it at all. But if I had to rate it, I'd go with pre-teen+. The violence has been minimal (aside from the sadistic teacher, but that's mostly innuendo), swearing minimal, no sexual content (up to page 244), so yeah. If you've got a reader who really wants to experience this dystopian world, go for it. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other books to read. Hopefully I'll enjoy/blog about those.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Let Me Count The Ways...
My husband loves me. And it's gonna take a while to build up to it, so I give you permission to skip to the end IF you promise to go back and read it later. I've got my eye on you.
So, he loves me.
I know, it should be obvious. He married me, I bore him a son to mess with and teach all his weird ways to torment me and my family with, yadda yadda yadda.
But the past 24 hours have just been amazing to me.
We woke up early and started cleaning the house together before the gas and electric company's representative came over to make sure our a/c was functioning in top condition for summer (to save money, woot!). We were doing really well, and Tigger wasn't being too much in the way, until he was. And I was exhausted and couldn't bend anymore. And our dishwasher was proving to not actually be cleaning anything.
So I did my best with Tigger (who was our reason for the earliness of our rising. 515am is NOT OK!), trying to keep him entertained and out of the way while still remaining actively helpful in a cleaning capacity (unsuccessfully) and watching Pooh try not to lose it as Tigger tromped through and played in his dirt pile.
Oh Dude came and went, and Tigger and I napped for two hours (yikes!). It was glorious, and the standard length of his morning nap. Pooh had washed dishes, swept the living room, replaced our couch back against the wall (we have a very long living room, so when we watch a movie, we pull it waaaaay up closer to the tv), put away all Tigger's toys, hung up and taken down laundry.
Then we ran to the store to get diapers (because we kept forgetting we were out) and dishwasher cleaner ("maybe it's just gunky, and not actually a piece of junk?") and grabbed lunch while we were out because we completely missed lunch because, let's be honest here. Yeah.
Then my visiting teacher and her son came over - as previously arranged - to help clean/watch my kid so we could clean. This is something Pooh had asked me to cancel and I honestly kept forgetting to do. Turned out to be very helpful (I thought) since he got to talk scouting to people involved but not resistant to him and help an aspiring Eagle figure out what and how to get his stuff done.
So we got even more stuff done, like 3-4 loads of laundry folded and dishes washed, kitchen swept and mopped, and the whole time Pooh was down-right pleasant for going through something he'd been asking me to cancel.
And before you say something like "why on earth would he be upset about people helping clean?", it's one thing to have family help clean and asking you where everything goes, and another to have someone who is a virtual stranger to you doing the same. I get it. I'm just beyond caring that someone else is cleaning my space. It needs doing and I can't do it, so I'm cool.
Anywho, so the day progressed and I honestly can't remember what else we did (scary!), but we went to bed a bit on the late side, like, closer to 11 than I like to, and I struggled for the next 2 hours with being hot and feeling like little bugs were landing on me. Not biting. Just landing. It was driving me batty!
So I just gave up at 130 and surfed the interwebs until 5 when I crawled back into bed completely exhausted but not even remotely falling asleep (curse you, pregnancy! Stop making my body and my brain team up to thwart my sleep; it's RUDE!) Eventually I must have because Pooh brings in Tigger and I look at the clock and it's 645. They go to the living room, and the next thing I know it's an hour later and Pooh made me soft-boiled eggs and english muffin!!!
He brings them to me in bed and announces he's taking Tigger and going to JoAnn's to get fabric for scout neckerchiefs, so I should just relax and enjoy my breakfast. In bed.
Er go, he loves me.
So, he loves me.
I know, it should be obvious. He married me, I bore him a son to mess with and teach all his weird ways to torment me and my family with, yadda yadda yadda.
But the past 24 hours have just been amazing to me.
We woke up early and started cleaning the house together before the gas and electric company's representative came over to make sure our a/c was functioning in top condition for summer (to save money, woot!). We were doing really well, and Tigger wasn't being too much in the way, until he was. And I was exhausted and couldn't bend anymore. And our dishwasher was proving to not actually be cleaning anything.
So I did my best with Tigger (who was our reason for the earliness of our rising. 515am is NOT OK!), trying to keep him entertained and out of the way while still remaining actively helpful in a cleaning capacity (unsuccessfully) and watching Pooh try not to lose it as Tigger tromped through and played in his dirt pile.
Oh Dude came and went, and Tigger and I napped for two hours (yikes!). It was glorious, and the standard length of his morning nap. Pooh had washed dishes, swept the living room, replaced our couch back against the wall (we have a very long living room, so when we watch a movie, we pull it waaaaay up closer to the tv), put away all Tigger's toys, hung up and taken down laundry.
Then we ran to the store to get diapers (because we kept forgetting we were out) and dishwasher cleaner ("maybe it's just gunky, and not actually a piece of junk?") and grabbed lunch while we were out because we completely missed lunch because, let's be honest here. Yeah.
Then my visiting teacher and her son came over - as previously arranged - to help clean/watch my kid so we could clean. This is something Pooh had asked me to cancel and I honestly kept forgetting to do. Turned out to be very helpful (I thought) since he got to talk scouting to people involved but not resistant to him and help an aspiring Eagle figure out what and how to get his stuff done.
So we got even more stuff done, like 3-4 loads of laundry folded and dishes washed, kitchen swept and mopped, and the whole time Pooh was down-right pleasant for going through something he'd been asking me to cancel.
And before you say something like "why on earth would he be upset about people helping clean?", it's one thing to have family help clean and asking you where everything goes, and another to have someone who is a virtual stranger to you doing the same. I get it. I'm just beyond caring that someone else is cleaning my space. It needs doing and I can't do it, so I'm cool.
Anywho, so the day progressed and I honestly can't remember what else we did (scary!), but we went to bed a bit on the late side, like, closer to 11 than I like to, and I struggled for the next 2 hours with being hot and feeling like little bugs were landing on me. Not biting. Just landing. It was driving me batty!
So I just gave up at 130 and surfed the interwebs until 5 when I crawled back into bed completely exhausted but not even remotely falling asleep (curse you, pregnancy! Stop making my body and my brain team up to thwart my sleep; it's RUDE!) Eventually I must have because Pooh brings in Tigger and I look at the clock and it's 645. They go to the living room, and the next thing I know it's an hour later and Pooh made me soft-boiled eggs and english muffin!!!
He brings them to me in bed and announces he's taking Tigger and going to JoAnn's to get fabric for scout neckerchiefs, so I should just relax and enjoy my breakfast. In bed.
Er go, he loves me.
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