Book “review” roundup

So yes, it has been quite some time since I posted here with book reviews so I probably will just write my rating of the books and nothing else unless I really feel the need to share something about it.

 

#19 – 

Entice (#2) by Jessica Shirvington  – 4 STARS

 

#20 

Life, In Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson – 4 STARS

#21 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – 5 STARS

#22 

Matched by Ally Condie – 3 STARS

#23 

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper – 4 STARS

#24 

Crossed (#2) by Ally Condie – 3 STARS

#25 

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures by Amber Dusick – 5 STARS

#26 

Reached (#3) by Ally Condie – 3 STARS

#27 

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas – 3 STARS

#28 

Emblaze (#3) by Jessica Shirvington – 3 STARS

#29 

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling – 4 STARS

#30 

I Could Pee on This by Francesco Marciuliano – 3 STARS

#31 

World War Z by Max Brooks – 4 STARS

#32 

Confessions of a Scary Mommy by Jill Smokler – 3 STARS

#33 

Frost Burned (#7) by Patricia Briggs – 3 STARS

#34 

Requiem (#3) by Lauren Oliver – 3 STARS

#35 

Twice Tempted (#2)  by Jeaniene Frost – 4 STARS

#36 

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple – 4 STARS

#37 

Motherhood Comes Naturally by Jill Smoker – 3 STARS

#38 

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom – 2 STARS

#39 

Dead Ever After (#13) by Charlaine Harris – 3 STARS

#40 

Betrayal in Death (#12) by J.D. Robb – 3 STARS

#41 

Seduction in Death (#13) by J.D. Robb – 3 STARS

#42 

Inferno (#4) by Dan Brown – 2 STARS

#43 

The Unlikely Pilgramage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce – 4 STARS

#44 

Clockwork Princess (#3) by Cassandra Clare – 3 STARS

#45 

Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella – 3 STARS

#46 

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer – 4 STARS

Currently reading: 

Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah

And because it took me a while to get through some books, I am now 7 books behind my goal of reading 105 books. I’d like to say I’ll be kicking it into high gear, but I probably won’t. Things are just too busy with work and kids and kids activities and birthday parties and housework, etc. etc. etc. However, with that being said, I do want to try to reach my goal – if at the very least, exceed my count of 100 from last year. Wish me luck!

Hello again

I have a moment so I thought I’d write a recap of the past few months.

We went to Spokane over the kids spring break – it was a nice time with family. We went to Lake Couer D’Alene for a little bit. We went to parks. And basically hung out with family. My mom was in the hospital for a couple of the days we were there so we saw her there as well. Things are o.k. now.

In June, Benjamin and Ella turned 6. We had a combined birthday party with another set of boy/girl twins that were born 2 days after Benjamin and Ella at the Mountlake Terrace Swimming pool – that party was with our Parkwood Elementary friends. That was a lot of fun! We also had one at our house for our non-Parkwood friends. That was a lot of fun as well.

The twins finished up kindergarten. I took a picture of them on the last day and compared it to their first day and they certainly have grown!

Over the summer, Benjamin will be starting baseball through the YMCA and also taking a soccer class through Shoreline Parks & Rec. Ella is taking swimming lessons at the Y and taking the same soccer class as Benjamin. Nicholas wanted a mom and child swim class but it was already full. Not sure if we’re going to sign him up for anything until he develops more of an interest in things.

At this time of this writing, I have an annoying cold that I hope will go away soon as I’ll be heading over to Spokane next Friday for a cousin’s wedding. I can’t wait to see my family! I’ll just be going on my own as they requested that no children come. It’s o.k. – we’ll all be going over to Spokane in August for a family reunion (but on the other side of the family) so they’ll see everyone then!

And that’s about it for the time being.

And now, I’ll do a recap on all of the books I’ve read since my last post on that. That will probably take a while…

S is for Spokane

How timely that S lands on the day we are travelling to Spokane to visit my family.

Everyone have a good day!

R is for Rest

I took a little rest from posting on my blog. This week will be intermittent with my posts as I’ll be taking the kids to the other side of the state to visit my family while Jon stays home as he doesn’t have enough vacation to come with us.

As I write this, my mom is in the hospital. She is fighting cancer and last night she developed a fever and has low red blood cell count so they gave her more blood of which she developed hives from. She hopes to be able to go home tomorrow. I hope so!

Q is for Quit

Don’t you sometimes just want to throw up your arms in the air and say “I quit” in response to seeing yet another idiotic statement. I know I do.  I read stupid comments or stories about why gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married, why we shouldn’t regulate gun purchases, why students are told stupid, non-scientific statements about birth control, or at any number of conspiracies surrounding the Newtown shootings or stupid jokes about banning bombs or pressure cookers. I can’t tell you how fed up I am at all of this.

For marriage equality – and that is what it is, an equality issue – I guess I just don’t get it. How does another couple’s marriage hurt you in any way. Maybe if we promoted more love in this world then we wouldn’t have the violence that we have.  This is an equal rights issue. If two consenting adults want to get married, why shouldn’t they be able to? The statement that we shouldn’t redefine marriage bothers me a great deal considering marriage has evolved quite a bit over the centuries.

For the gun control issues –  I was looking at my Facebook feed today and saw this posted by a family member.

Below that another family member says in response “You will soon need a permit to purchase a pressure cooker.”

UGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

First – I feel the need to point out that the misspelled “miss spell” – on purpose or not?

Second, someone please tell me what is wrong with background checks? From what I hear, 90% of Americans agree that background checks are acceptable and could potentially stop some incidents from happening. If that even has the slightest potential of being true, shouldn’t we do so? I am so angry with the Senate right now for voting down something that a very clear majority of Americans approve of.

After all we have seat belt laws because it can potentially save lives though it doesn’t always. We regulate the food industry so not everyone has food poisoning but sometimes people do  We require people to go the speed limit to prevent deaths though people routinely don’t follow that one.  I could think of many other examples. The same could be said of background checks. It isn’t perfect but it could help.

The difference between pencils, cars, spoons versus guns is that the purpose of the first three is not to kill, but to write, drive, and eat respectively. Guns ONLY purpose is to kill. This is why this whole guns don’t kill people, people do argument drives me crazy.

And the joke that pressure cookers will need a permit or that bombs will be banned (as I’ve seen another say) is aggravating.  The government does regulate explosives. Just like the above, it may not stop everything but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have those regulations.

For the students that were told that if you use birth control that your parents hate you. I am just speechless on that news story.

And finally, my thoughts and prayers are sent out to the people of West, Texas who suffered a horrible tragedy on Wednesday. This plant had some violations recently too.

P is for Patience

Something I need a lot more of sometimes. I have a feeling my patience will be tested as I drive to Spokane and spend the week there with the 3 kids all on my own, but I am very much looking forward to spending the week with my kids and with my family. I can’t wait until Friday afternoon for my vacation!

 

 

N is for Not Again and O is for Outlandish

As predicted, I am a bit behind in my posts.

I thought I would put these posts together as they go together in my head.

We have all heard the horrible news about the bombings in Boston at the Boston Marathon. My first reaction was – who does something like this? Why would someone think this was an answer to their problems? Then I heard about the death of an 8-year-old. All of the deaths are horrible, but it just hurts that much more when a child is killed. What did any of those people there do to you? I never get that. The people were there for a celebratory event – they didn’t do anything to provoke this type of hatred.

The N is Not Again because please not again do we have to deal with this type of event. I remember the morning of 9/11 clearly. I remember hearing about the Newtown shootings all too clearly – in fact, that event is always on my mind with my twins being around the same age as the children that were killed so maliciously. I don’t know anybody personally that were hurt doing any of these events but I feel them deeply and I hurt for those who lost someone. I hurt for the children as the moment they left this earth had to be the scariest moment of their lives – of anyone’s lives really. I cannot possibly imagine what it is like to lose a child. I hope I never have to find that out. I don’t understand this world. Sure, I get annoyed at drivers and politicians and co-workers and friends and family members and any number of things, but I certainly wouldn’t do anything purposefully to harm another. No matter how much I may disagree with them.

Then we come to “O” for Outlandish. First, I hear the question asked of Governor Patrick of MA at the news conference the other day asking “Why were the loudspeakers telling people in the audience to be calm moments before the bombs went off? Is this another false flag staged attack to take our civil liberties and promote homeland security while sticking their hands down our pants on the streets?” Wow, really? I don’t get people. Even if the government wanted to take our civil liberties away, I don’t believe for a second that they would kill and maim innocent people just for showing up to a race. People are certainly crazy as evidenced by people sharing conspiracy videos and pictures on Facebook showing the principal of the Newtown school also being killed in Boston (instead of it being human error, it’s a conspiracy!) or videos showing Facebook pages set up before the event offering thoughts and prayers to the victims. I believe on Snopes somewhere they addressed this very issue after the Newtown massacre. People can manipulate dates on things easily.

 

Second, I hear the statement/joke about “oh, we better ban bombs now. oh wait” as a comeback from the people who think the government want to ban guns. The government doesn’t want to ban guns – maybe assault rifles because who seriously needs one of those – but that’s all. They want to be able to regulate the gun laws already on the books that the NRA had somehow got politicians to add items to other bills to make it difficult to do so and they want background checks. What is wrong with that? They say that people will continue to be hurt by guns so why bother with any laws, but these laws could potentially prevent some events so shouldn’t we at least try? What is wrong with trying? We tell people to wear their seat belt not because it will save everyone, but because it could potentially save a good number of people. We tell people to drive the speed limit for the same reason. It may not prevent every incident out there, but if it could, I think we should try.

(Note – the above was written in a really hasty, rushed way so it isn’t as coherent as I would like it to be. If I had more time, I’d actually research things a bit more.)

M is for Mine

Real quick as I don’t have much time.

M is for Mine – all parents have heard this one. With three kids, I feel like we hear this a lot along with the other favorite of “that’s not fair”. What phrases do you hear a lot from your kids?

L is for Lost

That was the first word that popped into my head so Lost it is.

Lost, the TV show or just feeling lost? Probably both.

I enjoyed the tv show – that show had a way of making me want to learn more. Like if they showed a book, I had to know what it was about and why they would show it on the show.

I also feeling a bit lost – as in, how in the world am I going to get done all I need to get done in a 40 hour work week and at home? How? I don’t even know where to begin. Sigh.

That’s all I have time for today. Maybe I’ll have the M post up on time on Monday, but I’m thinking probably not.

K is for Kindergarten

 

I meant to work on this yesterday but work was so crazy so no time for a break and I had a PTA meeting to go to last night. And well, I don’t have much time today either. I’m beginning to think this A-Z challenge is not for me.

Kindergarten. I have twins that are nearing the end of their first year of school. I was so excited for them to start, as were they. They’ve grown a lot and are comfortable with going to their classrooms on their own. ;-(

I remember the first day of dropping them off and taking a ton of pictures. They were so excited to see what this school thing was all about. They felt like big kids and they still do. It is so fun to hear about what they do each day and I had a blast going on one of their recent field trips to see the Seattle Dance Project.

It is so wonderful to see them learning to read and listening to them sound out words that they don’t know. As a book lover, I hope my kids also have a strong love of books too.

The twins are loving school too – I hope that continues too as my husband and I are fans of always learning something new.

I joined the PTA to help make the school a better place for everyone – not just the kids and teachers, but for the parents too. I look forward to doing more with them.