We went to see Iron Man Saturday night and enjoyed the flick. It’s been a little while since we took the kids with us to the theater and we haven’t been frequenting it as much as we used to. However, we did sneak a date night a few weeks ago and went to see The Forbidden Kingdom. I expect regular visits for the rest of this month as there’s three more shows lined up to come out every weekend that we want to see. I’m especially looking forward to the new Narnia and Indiana Jones movies. It’s funny that our theater time has dropped because you’d think both that and watching movies at home would have gone up since we nixed the TV last October but surprisingly they’ve both dropped as well. It’s an interesting observation.

I had a friend forward me a link to a YouTube video on the making of the Twilight movie. That looks to be great fun this December. I really enjoyed the series. I still wish she were spending her time writing it from Edward’s perspective instead of continuing the series but wishing won’t make it so. I also finished the newest Fablehaven book this weekend. It was another fun read. My only concern for the author is that the main story line seems to be as rutted as Harry Potter. Only instead of Harry being threatened with continual destruction it’s Fablehaven. I’m not sure how you get around that in a series but it can get a bit tedious even with all the great action in each book. Although Brandon is the first author I’ve read that I couldn’t accurately guess most of what was coming and I really like that. It was also an easy and fast read like the Harry Potter books for me.

I need to read some C.S. Lewis and Ralph Waldo Emerson books. They are two authors I’m delinquent in reading yet I love the little I’ve been exposed to and the numerous quotes of both. I’ve been marking some of the best selling books on my Facebook visual bookshelf to diversify my reading too. I love being part of a book club but unfortunately, by the time the discussion rolls around it will have been several weeks since I read the book and likely some other books in between. The problem is that you want to discuss a book as soon as you’ve read it and it’s hard to find others who are at the same point as you. Even with my husband finishing Fablehaven last night we haven’t really had any discussion on it and although I think I’d like to we never get back to it.

Any other thoughts out there on great books or movies?

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Blogging Reading

So many things are calling for my attention this morning but my mind is likely to explode if I don’t find a way to get some of these thoughts and memories out. So the laundry, dishes and vacuuming will have to wait while I attempt to organize and store these thoughts here on my blog - my personal pensieve.

The memory mumble in my head has been building for a while now. The culprits for the growth include: 1) watching my daughter and remembering life at her age, 2) being in touch with old classmates, 3) reading. All three seem to have recently collided in the same space of my mind.

My daughter is 10 this year. She reminds me frequently that she’s really almost 10 1/2 because she’ll be 11 this fall. What she doesn’t know is that I need no reminding. Nor does she comprehend how well I understand her feelings of wanting so much to hasten growth not to mention the emotions of girl troubles and boy crushes. But I do remember and watching her experience it is like reliving some of my past on a regular basis, which until recently I’ve completely underestimated the power of. This is intertwined with viewing photos yesterday of some old classmates at my last high school reunion that I didn’t make it too. I saw a picture of one of my best friends when I was her age and it brought back a flood of memories. Then last night as I was reading, I was struck with the harsh reality of how many things we do in our lives because of influence or peer pressure and how that impacts our lives, the lives of others and the memories we lock away.

Lock is an intentional verb in the concept of storing memories. You see I’ve recently come to the realization of how I’ve locked in so many memories, expectations and criteria based on association and timing. Sadly, many of those were done automatically when I was the least capable in my life of looking beyond myself - namely, high school. As I looked through pictures of classmates from a few years ago I found myself thinking terrible things like, “wow, they sure got fat”, or “woof, time has not been friendly to them”, or even “they look as mean and stuck up as they ever were.” These aren’t the things I think when I meet people every day now, I don’t hold them to this standard. And then I thought on how I was being so harsh in my judgments and expectations simply because of association. The fact is, I knew these people when they were teens. The fact is, teens are self-centered and egotistical and often down right unkind. The fact is, teen bodies haven’t been impacted with age. I didn’t think I was a terrible teen, I still don’t. But I concede that I was totally wrapped up in myself, my own fears, anxieties, self conscious worries, etc. Heck, I never wore a short sleeved shirt to school or shorts because I was so sure everyone would notice my horrifically bony elbows and knees. It never even occurred to me that they wouldn’t notice my imperfections because they were so focused on their own. And I certainly never thought on the physical state of maturity and age, I just took for granted that my body would always be the same and therefore only focused on the things I didn’t like about it. This is where hindsight becomes so valuable and we’re back to that reality of not truly appreciating what you had until you no longer have it principle.

What really got me into a muddled mess was thinking about never giving these classmates a chance. I locked in my memories of them at their best or worst and that’s where they live in my mind. It’s why I’m so shocked when I find out how many kids some of them have or how nice they are now that they’re adults and I’d be equally shocked to learn anything negative about my personal heroes and the few I put on pedestals. I’m ashamed to admit it, but to this day there are two girls whose names make me cringe when I first hear them. It was a silly thing that happened clear back in 7th grade when they made fun of me for not having any boobs when I refused to give them my math answers. But it made its mark on me because it hit on the area of physical bodies and so many insecurities I battled with every day being so skinny and nothing but a straight highway. I’m sure neither one remembers it and I’d guess that both would feel terrible today to know how much it devastated me. And that’s the point. Kids are mean. Sometimes they’re just stupid and do and say things without thinking. Most of the time they do or say mean things just to impress someone they’re with because they want so much to be accepted and feel important. This peer pressure makes kids do things they wouldn’t do on their own and often things that are uncharacteristic. This describes the scene I read last night in my book and it made me really think hard on my own locked memories. Moreover I wonder how many people have locked memories of me doing or saying something that was hurtful to them that I’m not even aware of? And wouldn’t I like the chance to be redeemed or make things right?

I’m not sure if this post is really going anywhere or not. I just know I have a lot of thoughts and feelings regarding the many memories in my head right now. As my husband’s 20 year reunion comes up this summer I see and hear so many shallow things regarding these locked memories. Some are so bitter that they have nothing but complaints and unkind things to say. Others purposely attempt to live in those days past because they were the height of their glory days. All I know is that I’ve grown SO much as a person since my school days and the person I am now is the one I’d like my classmates to know, not the growing, insecure teen I was. That means I have to look at each of them with different eyes too. So why is association memory so difficult?

I’ve definitely identified some things I need to work on, namely my own lock box of memories. Maybe it’s time for me to find a key and allow those babies to move around a bit, rub up against some new memories in my mind. Perhaps I’ll start unlocking those trapped memories here in some more posts on specific memories; try to view them in a new and different light. It’s funny what you choose to remember and how when you start thinking on those things other memories find a way of spilling out. It’s part of who we are - a natural process. But if I want to keep growing as a person I think I need to air out some of these memories. Besides that, they’re not all bad. In fact, I’m sure I’ll be surprised at how many good ones are hidden under the locked ones. Hmmmmm that’s something to think about.

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School Sharing Emotions Relationships Parenthood Blogging Reading Deep Thoughts

A myriad of thoughts run through my mind at this statement. It applies in so many places. Today I’m paying for last night’s decision to stay up and read until 2:30 AM. I could share how quickly one forgets the life of the independent young adult who frequently stays up late and how much changes when you grow older and your body forgets to recuperate as quickly as it did then. But the real purpose of this post is to share how much I have forgotten in a wonderful book I recently read for the second time.

It’s possible that I was just competing with my husband, or maybe it was just sympathy pains for him, or maybe even it was just the misery of knowing how I don’t sleep when he’s away but whatever the reason I stayed up until just after 2AM this morning reading. He’s on a business trip to NY. I could insert another memory lapse here on how quickly I forget how much I hate being away from him. I’m not one to give way to panic but when the call of his arrival reached the point of being nearly an hour late I started to think about all those things you shouldn’t. So I called his phone but went right to voicemail. I calmed myself saying that his phone must still be off and thus it was probably a delayed flight. This reasoning and my reading passed the next hour without much worry, but as the third hour approached my mind started wandering again. I tried so hard to push my 5 year old’s words to his nightly prayer out of my head when he prayed that if his daddy died that Jesus would be with him to help him. He was probably just trying to find the right way to express his concern through prayer but it started to make me uneasy. I picked up the phone and tried again. It rang. And rang. And rang. Finally he picked up in a soft voice I nearly cried for the relief of hearing it. He asked me if I had not gotten his message to which I replied I hadn’t even checked as I’d had the phone by my side since 9PM and it never rang. He apologized and said he’d called twice and left a message the second time. Now I was the one who felt bad as it was now nearly 2:30AM in NY and he would have to be up and going in only 3 short hours. I don’t know if the phone settings were the culprit or what but I was just so happy to hear his voice and know he was okay I didn’t even care. I sang myself to sleep at about the same time I knew he was waking to start his day. How quickly one forgets the comfort of simply having your loved on by your side and within reach.

After our call I couldn’t sleep as my mind and heart were still racing and now that I knew he was safe those crazy sounds, that only come out when you’re feeling alone and vulnerable in the dark, started. So I kept reading. Just after midnight I’d reached a point where I couldn’t put my book down and had to finish it. What’s really interesting is that I’ve read this book before, and I remember I really liked it. I’ve even seen the movie based on the book and liked that too. Yet, I remembered almost nothing about this book! Almost page by page I was astonished that I’d forgotten this part or that and how the movie was NOTHING like the book. In fact, beyond recognizing a few main character names and general story line of an innocent victim who gets his vengeance in the end, the movie was a completely different story from the famous book. The book of which I speak is The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a popular favorite among high school English teachers and the copy I was reading was in fact the old paperback my husband still had from such a class. I had read this book for the first time about 11 years ago when going back to school for a teaching degree. Our professor had told us that nothing did a soul as much good as reading or re-reading a classic piece of literature at least once or twice a year and thus one of our assignments was to read a classic. I remember being transfixed by the book and loving it, yet these 11 years later I had forgotten nearly everything.

I’m so glad I took the time to re-read this wonderful classic and if you haven’t read it before or if it’s just been a while I strongly suggest you make time to read it. I have so much more to say about it but as it’s time to go pick up my son and this post is already so much longer than I intended I’ll have to save it for another post. In all my forgetting things, at least I can still remember when school gets out. *wink*

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Family Sharing Relationships Marriage Blogging Reading

I’m finding myself falling back into reading. In the past I was always the type of person who would pick a book once in a while. I now find myself always on the look out for a good book to read. When we moved into our new home a friend invited me to a book club. She told me I’d fit right in and she was right. It’s been a year now and I’ve loved the exposure to reading and discussing books that I probably would never have picked out or read on my own. It’s fed a new appetite for reading.

This month the book Twilight was chosen with special attention to the month of October and Halloween. I’d heard about this book a while ago and have been intrigued, I’ve even read some basic discussions on the book from others who have read it. I’d planned to get around to it but it wasn’t until it came up as this month’s book that I actually got that done. I got all three books at the same time as the warning was made clear at the last book club meeting that discussion would likely include all three books. I began reading Friday and I finished the last book yesterday (the shortest book is 500 pages.) The push wasn’t because I had to get through them, it was that I really couldn’t wait to get through them. Except today I find myself disappointed that there’s not something fun to look forward to. *giggle*

I think the author hits a chord with most females on the planet. She invokes deep feelings, emotions and arouses the sexual nature of women in a way that I think most wish men would. *laugh* Further, I found myself with many stirred up memories of men I’ve known in my past comparing them to the qualities and characteristics of her characters, wondering what would have happened if I had made different decisions, etc. I also stole a few thoughts about enhancing my own marriage relationship to find the same magic I’d just read about. I think the mark of any great book is when your left with many thoughts and emotions long after you close the cover.

I made my husband read the book just to see if my theory of the male/female reaction to the writing would be as different as I expected it would be. Suffice it to say it was. The “erotic tension” her editor and publisher describe was not at all the same for my husband as it was for me. It wasn’t without any merit, just not the same. Men should be taking notes and women should be filling their personal fulfillment reservoirs by reading her books. *snort* And the crazy part about saying that is that it’s so simple and clean that it almost seems an oxymoron to even write anything like that. Seriously though, she involved all the necessary ingredients for success - forbidden love, suspense, self doubt, triumph and so much more. It was a fun series to read and one I have no problem recommending to others.

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Emotions Relationships Blogging Reading

Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent started an incredibly powerful and magical list of Outstanding Women Bloggers.

I am honored that my friend, Karen included me in her list of women she’s adding to the list! Thanks Karen! And just so you know, you’re among my list of favorite women bloggers too! Kuddos to you.

Karen already grabbed a few of my picks, but there’s plenty to choose from and plenty of love to go around! So I’m adding:

Kailani of Island Life
Wendy of Emoms At Home
Mary of Almost, Somewhat Positive

Now keep adding more outstanding women bloggers to the list!

Here is the list so far……

(more…)

It was a full weekend of reading for us. We bought two Harry Potter books on Saturday and started reading that afternoon. I had too many interruptions with dinner and bedtime routines to get more than about halfway before bed and finished last night. But Blake stayed up until the wee hours of Sunday morning to finish. He was a little anxious for me to get through it yesterday. I won’t give any spoilers at this time but I have to say I was happy to be proven right about my theories. I have decided that I need to go back and re-read books five and six again because there was a lot that came up in this one that I couldn’t quite remember.

We also took in the most recent Potter movie while on vacation. It was everything I expected and I enjoyed it. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see more of the Weasley twin’s mischief but you simply can’t fit much more than they did into the time window for a movie. It’s so fun to go back and see some of the early shows when the trio were so young. It’s always kind of weird to watch actors grow up with a series. It’s also interesting to see what it does to your reading experience once you have an actor’s rendition of a character in your head. Pre-movie was a time when you had to create the image of the characters in your mind but with the movies coming out during the book series it flip flopped - at least for me. In the later books I could see and hear the actors like Snape and Rita Skeeter in my head as I read about them.

It’s been such a fun and interesting journey with Harry Potter. There was so much hype about it when they first came out that I had no interest in reading it whatsoever. But then about a week before the movie came out both my husband and I decided maybe we’d read it as we’d already heard so much speculation about what they’d have to cut out to make it a movie. There was a book sitting at his mom’s and I picked it up to start reading. I didn’t put it back down until I was finished. It was a fast and engaging read and we were both really glad we’d read the book just days before the movie came out so we’d understand more what was going on. After that it was easy to want to read the next book installments even though they continually got longer and longer.

As we talked about it yesterday a little my husband pointed out something very important. It was that these were written as children/youth books. Therefore some of the storyline and developments were more basic than I may have liked, or at least as my imagination flourished, as the series progressed, but to keep it in perspective I think it was right on. The fact that it could engage so many adult readers is a tribute to the style of writing and story in my mind. For more fun reveiws visit Blake. *wink*

Anyone else out there a Harry Potter fan? What has your experience been?

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Perspectives Blogging Harry Potter Reading