Slowing down long enough to listen.....

When I was in NM the other weekend, my mom bought me "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" by Joanna Weaver. I had seen reviews of this book before and thought it looked interesting.

I am only a bit into it so far, but I am really liking it. The book is based on two sisters, Mary and Martha, from the book of Luke. It explores the differences between these two sisters and the changes that both made.

So often I feel like I am burning the candle at both ends, with all my obligations falling short. What I need to realize is that I put these obligations on myself, no one expects more of me than me. More times that not I am holding myself to an unobtainable standard then feel...disappointed in myself.

I need to take time to nurture my relationship with God and to truly give time to listen to HIS call. It is THE most important relationship in my life, and I need to honor it as such. My good deeds are never going to be good enough....they are just that - deeds. Rushing around trying to put 30 hours in a 24 hour day isn't going to work, and it's going to result in burn out.

I guess what I'm looking for is to stop being too busy to listen to my Savior. Only I can do this, only I can prioritize my life. I need to stop comparing EVERYTHING and just start enjoying. I am so thankful for ALL the blessings in my life, they are more abundant than I can recount. However, I know I will find much more in THIS relationship than in the ACTS I hold so dearly now.

I'm trying to read a chapter a night....but, true to my nature, sometimes I fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow. So it might take a while, but I'll give you the full review when I'm done. And hopefully I'll have some positive changes to report as well!

Super Freakonomics - a Review

This book was a page turner, just as the last one, Freakonomics, was. I love how it makes you think about things in a new way and provides so much information on new ideas and the progressive steps people are taking. The research done for the book is abundent. If you are looking for a quick read and for something that will really open your eyes - I recommend this one.
One of the parts that I liked the most was about buying local. There has been a huge kick in recent years to buy your food from local farms and ranches. And while the authors were not advocating to stop this practice, they did write about how sometimes this is not always lessening your carbon footprint, because it often takes more energy to grow food/meat on a small scale than it does in producing on a large scale, despite the saved energy in transportation. I also liked the part about how people have really good intentions, like buying a Prius, yet go to the grocery store and buy meat, when cows are doing much more damage to the earth than driving a regular non-hybrid car.
I found this interesting because it is something we have been discussing all quarter in my sustainability class. Your footprint can be so big due to things you don't even think about, like eating meat and dairy. One of the big problems there is the water usage in raising beef and dairy cattle. We had to take a few quizes (online) to determine how much of an impact we as individuals were having on the earth - and I was blown away by my results. I feel that Tony and I really try to be conservative when it comes to energy. We have a modest size home, we keep the heat pretty low (never above 63), take short showers and believe if it's yellow let it mellow (TMI?), yet I had a pretty high score on both quizes. Oh, and we don't eat meat every day and when we do, lately, it's been only elk meat. I think that was probably one of the flaws of the quiz, they only asked if you eat meat and didn't discern between the types of meat.
Well, I digress, but if you like thinking about economics in a whole new way - check this book at (at your local library - save a tree!).

The book by Julia

So I finished "My Life in France" by Julia Child. And it was wonderful, of course. I wouldn't expect anything less. This is Julia Child. And yes, I am like milions of other people, after watching Julie and Julia I decided that I had to know more about Ms. Child. This book was sweet and really documented her and Paul's life together. She seemed really honest in the book. I loved that most of it was just talking about food though! She is so intense, and you could really feel that throughout the book. But one thing you can say for her, she was passionate. I have this quote taped to my monitor at work, so that way I have to say it to myself everyday.
"Find something you are passionate about, and keep tremendously interested in it" - Julia Child

It helps me everyday to remember that although I am not doing something I am PASSIONATE about from 9-5, I can do what I'm passionate about in my own time, and eventually, perhaps my passion can be my career too....you know, after school. :) 

So many books....so little time

I miss reading for pleasure. I thought I would read a lot more on my week and a half break from school. Instead I painted one of the spare rooms (pics to come - I'm still not quite finished). Painting always takes so much more time than I think it will - and it's always much more messy. My new bed spread (a la Sarah moving to England) is now speckled yellow. But I think it's going to turn out great.

Tony's mom let me borrow her book "The Box Children" and I couldn't put it down. I finished it in 2 days. It was a quick read - about a girl growing up in the Texas panhandle with a crazy mom. It was somewhat depressing but it was a page turner.



I've also been reading "The Element". Background on this book: My management professor from last quarter gave it to me as a gift. I wasn't quite sure what she meant by "a gift" because she used that word quite a bit in class referencing the different material we were going over - or clips of speakers - or presentations - they were "gifts". She gave me the book because I had been disappointed in one of our advising sessions - it wasn't necessary, but she did it because she said she felt bad. (WHAT? Have you ever heard of a compassionate professor who actually cares what her students feel? One of the reasons I LOVED this class so much!) So I'm taking this book as an actual gift - a present. What do you think? Should I give it back to her after I read it?

This book is really good so far. I'm enjoying learning about all these people who found what they are good at, pursued it, and excelled. Isn't that every one's dream? To LOVE your job so much that it is no longer just a job?



I would love to get paid to read...at least I think I would. But maybe I wouldn't love it as much if I had to do it in order to get a paycheck? Nah, I would still love it. I can't get enough of books. You should see my "to read" list. It gets longer every day. So I've thought I would love to go into editing, but I am picky and wouldn't want to be editing math books. Maybe I would enjoy teaching people to read? Perhaps ESL? I also enjoy reading for people - one of the best jobs I have ever had was when I worked at the community college and I read text books for blind and dyslexic students. I LEARNED so much - even the subjects I didn't enjoy I still learned from. All because of reading an pre-nursing text book into a recorder I now know that the Penile Gland is pronounced "Pen - ill", NOT "pee-nul". BIG DIFFERENCE - unfortunately Tony didn't catch me saying that incorrectly until I was almost through with that chapter......I just hope the student listening knew I was pronouncing it incorrectly!

Girls Night Out

Stephanie Klein had a reading tonight in Denver, so Sarah and I made a girls night of it by going to dinner then going to the reading. I haven't had a girls night out in....while, I can't remember when. It was wonderful. I had such a good time! And the reading was really good too. The first speaker was Mindy Schneider, and I really enjoyed hearing her talk. Sarah and I might suggest that this book be our next book club read (our last was Moose). We told this to Mindy and she offered that we call her during our meeting so she can talk with us about the book!! AWESOME! I was kind of nervous to meet Stephanie, simply because I have been a voyeur of her life for so long. She was very down to earth. I'm not really sure what I expected, but she was nice and seemed really sincere. I'm sure I seemed like a sweaty dork...but oh well, I still had a good time! Hopefully I didn't embarrass Sarah!
Tonight was wonderful, and I'm so thankful to Sarah for going with me, I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did.

Book Review - East of Eden

East of Eden took me a little while to read, but it was well worth it. Amazing book. I love John Steinbeck, so I knew I was going to like this one. I would highly recommend this one.
Then I started reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac. It was ok at the beginning, but I got lost in the details and had to put it down. It was just too much. What I did like were that there were several quotes about Denver, and Rock Island (interviewed for a job there about a year and 1/2 ago), and a tiny little town that Tony and I stayed in about 7 years ago, Ogallala, Nebraska. I didn't think anyone else had ever heard of the place (there's a good reason why, if you blink you miss it), but there it was in the book! Here's a couple of the quotes that I liked:
"then I took over the wheel and, though I'm not much of a driver, drove clear through the rest of Illinois to Davenport, Iowa, via Rock Island. And here for the first time in my life I saw my beloved Mississippi River, dry in the summer haze, low water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because it washes up".
This quote below touched me because in some way, I had felt this when we moved from the West to the East Coast
"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who i was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon".

"And he sat on the boards, crosslegged, looking out across the fields without saying anything for hundreds of miles and finally at one point he turned to me and said, "Where you headed?" I said Denver". - YES I AM!!!!! :)

"And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, far off, the great snowy tops of the Rocky Mountains. I took a deep breath. I had to get to Denver at once".

I'm sure there were some more great quotes, but I had couldn't go on reading it. I was too bored.

Now I'm reading Cold Mountain. I loved the movie, so I figured I would like the book even more. And so far I am. It's really descriptive and beautiful. Given how much I love learning about the Civil War, it is set in the perfect time period for me to enjoy.

Now I'm off to do more cleaning, going through stuff, throwing stuff away. Yuck. Moving is such a stress. The move date has been set for May 5th, but I'm not sure if we are going to be ready by then, so it might be pushed back to the 12th. There is just so much to do!! We are giving away one of chest of drawers today, and then we have to take our spare bed to the Salvation Army (I'm still upset with Good Will), along with some other clothes. We have a stack of magazines and some books to take to The Book Thing and while I'm there TRY not to take any books home. We are trying to clean out of freezer as well. I'm exhausted just thinking about doing all of this. Why am I such a pack rat? I can totally admit this, yet even now I have sentimental value attached to all these material objects that I know I have to throw away because I don't want to move all the way to CO with them. But I still have trouble giving or throwing the stuff away!

Books and Movies

We watched Into the Wild this week. I didn't think I was going to watch it (I DO NOT like Sean Penn), but my curiosity got the better of me. I read the book a while ago. It was a great book, written well, quick read, and my favorite thing about it was that Jon Krakauer didn't glorify Christopher McCandless, or his decisions. He just presented the truth (or as close as I suppose he could get to it), and it wasn't always nice. He wrote people's opinions on the tragedy, or as Christopher saw it, the adventure. The movie was close to the book. Of course some parts were left out, but overall it was accurate. The movie was quite long, but I am glad that I watched it. I think that Tony liked it a lot more than me, but that was probably because I knew what to expect.

I also read Love Eat Pray last month...ehhh. The first part about living in Italy was good, but the rest of it...I wasn't impressed. Who can take off one year from work to travel and find themselves? This isn't anyone I am ever going to relate to. I guess that it is just beyond my comprehension. People look so far outside of everything they know just to find out who they are. All that money and time hunting yourself down? After you 'find yourself', you better lock yourself away and never lose yourself again, it would be too expensive! I enjoyed the part about Italy mostly because I was going there, and I was trying to absorb everything about Italy I could find. I went into this book thinking this lady was just a housewife who had gone through a really bad time, had never been anywhere, and just wanted the opportunity to see the world. No, she traveled all the time before this! She is a journalist. The writing was ok, but I wouldn't recommend this book.

I've been reading again!!!

Now that my grad class is over I've been getting to read more. Here is some of what I have read lately:

Girl with a Pearl Earring: Set in 17th century Holland. Very good read. Kind of a sudden ending, like maybe the author got tired of writing or was close to a deadline, but overall I really enjoyed it. Very quick read too, which was nice. I love books set around this time period. I'll have to see the movie now and compare it.

Oh My Stars: This book was set in the 30's. A girl from Kentucky is on a bus, on her way to San Fransisco to committ suicide. But the bus crashes and in a series of events Violet ends up a manager for a band. She had a rough life before things got good. Good book about preserverance and friendship.

The Glass Castle: Recommended from Jesse. I couldn't put this book down. I still can't get over how these children were able to overcome all these adversities and make something of themselves. Jeannette Walls tells the story of her childhood, growing up with an alcoholic dad and a mother who is near nuts. Throughout the book I was surprised that there wasn't more anger. I kept thinking about how pissed I would be, but Jeannette and her siblings just kept going on. Maybe it's because they didn't know any better, didn't know enough to be really mad, or maybe they had just accepted this life, knowing that someday they would have it better. I love that they helped eachother out above all. The importance of siblings really came through this story to me.

Interesting Read

I finished reading The Rule of Four in less than a week. It helped that I had a lot of time to read in NC, but I haven't been able to put it down! The book centers around the Renaissance mystery, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, and the power it has over two Princeton students who are trying to unravel it's secrets. They put their lives on hold to solve the many riddles the book has in hopes that they can find the meaning the author, Francesco Colonna, crypticly placed throughout the Hypnerotomachia's pages. I love books that involve history, I feel like I'm learning meaningful information as I read along. I've really enjoyed the couple of books that I have read that involved Renaissance history, the art work, the philosophy, the books, and the families. The other book that I read that had that history in it was The Birth of Venus, another great book that I recommend. The ending of the Rule was somewhat predictable but exciting none the less. I would give this book a 3 out of 5.