Archive for August 2009
Musing Mondays (8/10)
Posted on: 10 August 2009
This week’s Musing Monday:
Do you have a favourite publishing house — one that puts out books that you constantly find yourself wanting to read? If so, who? And, what books have they published that you’ve loved?
I don’t have a favorite publishing house. In fact, I can’t honestly say that I really ever even notice what publishing house has put out the books that I read. I usually pick books out based on the summary and reviews or general talk about the book. Sometimes I’ll choose a book just because I’ve read and enjoyed something by that particular author before.
Embracing New
Posted on: 9 August 2009
- In: sunday scribblings | thoughts | writing
- 6 Comments
This week’s Sunday Scribbling: What’s new in your life? What new things should you be embracing? What does new mean to you?
I’m glad the prompt for this week didn’t automatically bring up a fictional response like last week’s did. It brought up something that I am going to have to get used to: having someone else take care of my child for a few hours a day. Up until now, I’ve only ever left my daughter with my husband (he really doesn’t count, though, does he?, my mother (twice, because we had to go to the airport to pick up family flying in from out of town), or my sister-in-law (once, while she was visiting from out of town). I’ve been able to take her to work with me, but now that she’s getting older (almost 5 months), my boss is not-so-subtly hinting that it’s time for that change.
Enter the search for daycare, which makes me uncomfortable. The only option we’d ever considered for daycare, long before we ever seriously considered having a baby, isn’t going to work and obviously never would have worked. We would’ve realized that if we had really thought it through, but we never really sat down and thought it through until recently.
So now I have to not only find someone to care for my daughter, but also get comfortable with the idea of leaving her with someone who isn’t me, a family member, or a friend. Frankly, it’s a little scary. Wait, no, it’s not a little scary. It’s very scary. Me leaving her with SOMEONE ELSE who isn’t me and who doesn’t know her like I do. This is what I need to embrace. Let’s just hope I can do it.
Bad Habits
Posted on: 7 August 2009
- In: me | thoughts
- Leave a Comment
We all have bad habits. There’s no getting away from them. The only thing we can do is recognize that we have them and then work on getting rid of them. Some times that just isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Trust me, I know from experience. I’ve been battling some bad habits for a long time and still haven’t conquered them. I need to really work on getting rid of these things so I can set a better example for my daughter.
1) I’m a procrastinator.
Yes, I admit it. I routinely wait until the last minute to do a lot of things, especially in my personal life. At home I don’t have the same rigid time constraints as I do at work. So what if the laundry basket is overflowing with towels as long as there are two or three clean towels left in the bathroom? It’s no big deal. The laundry can wait. So what if I know two weeks in advance that we are going to have company on Saturday evening? I can get everything I need done on Saturday morning. Stressing out over it isn’t a big deal. I’ll do better next time, I really will. Only I really don’t. I just keep going through this cycle again and again.
2) I’m a complainer.
A HUGE complainer. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I enjoy complaining about everything: the weather, the traffic, neighborhood children, the grocery store. Name anything you can think of and I can probably find some aspect of it that’s worth complaining about. It’s an big emotion drain.
3) I have a hard time with forgiving and forgetting, especially when it comes to myself.
This is the biggest emotional drain I can think of. I think this one doesn’t need much explanation. We all deal with this at some time in our lives, but we can’t let it consume us. Learning to completely forgive and forget (myself, especially) is going to be a hard journey.
4) I’m chronically last minute.
I’ve figured out the absolute last minute I can leave my house and still make it to work within a few minutes (meaning two or three) of when I’m supposed to me there. Of course, this is barring any unforeseen event like a traffic jam caused by a wreck or road construction. It doesn’t seem like it such a big deal since my boss and coworkers are always arriving a few minutes on the other side of 9 A.M. The more it happens and the more it’s able to slide, the more acceptable letting it happens seems.
5) Some of my best qualities don’t show in all aspects of my life.
My boss always says how organized and meticulous I am in my everyday work duties, but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at my personal life. I have clutter everywhere.
As my husband can tell you, this list is in no way a comprehensive list of my bad habits. These are just the five things that immediately came to mind when I decided that bad habits would be a good topic to write about. As part of my 101 goals, I plan to make a list of the things I don’t like about myself (bad habits, attitude issues, etc.) and either change them or just get over them (if it’s something that isn’t changeable, say, a physical trait), so further discussion on bad habits is sure to pop up at some point in the future.
Something I need to learn to do
Posted on: 5 August 2009
This afternoon, as I watched my perfectly happy four-month old playing with a Sprite bottle, I wished that I could be as easily amused as she is. Babies don’t need all the stuff that we adults do. They can live without television, telephones, and computers. Their lives won’t come to a screeching halt if they don’t have access to their email, Facebook, or Twitter. To me, it seems as if babies see what life is really about: noticing and embracing the all little things. The way the sun dances on the surface of a puddle of water. Seeing the smile on the face of someone they love.
As parents, we are supposed to teach our children all sorts of things. It’s part of our “job.” I can’t help but wonder what sorts of things our children can teach us if we just take the time to see things through their eyes. How much better would our lives be if we could live them like our children live theirs?
Musing Mondays (8/3)
Posted on: 3 August 2009
This week’s Musing Monday is a Library Habits meme:
1) If you don’t frequent your local library, why not?
I love my local library.
2) If you do visit the library, how often do you go?
I go at least once every two weeks, if not once every week. It just depends on how fast I’m going through my books.
3) Do you have a favorite section that you always head to first, or do you just randomly peruse the shelves?
I usually check out the new books first to see if there’s anything interesting. Otherwise, I go to the fiction section.
4) How many books are you allowed to check out at one time? Do you take advantage of this?
It’s my understanding that adult library cards can check out up to fifty items at a time. I’ve never taken advantage of this, yet anyways.
5) How long are you allowed to have the books checked out?
Two weeks
6) How many times are you allowed to renew your check-outs, if at all?
As long as the book or movie isn’t reserved for someone else and isn’t an interlibrary loan, you can renew them twice. You can’t renew interlibrary loan books at all.
7) What do you love best about your particular library?
I love that they’ll pull books for you if you request them online. It saves so much time. Plus I don’t have to juggle a baby and all the books I check out for her while trying to search for books for me.
8) What is one thing you wish your library did differently?
I really wish they opened at 8 A.M. during the week. It would be really nice to go to the library before work so I don’t have to battle the traffic in the afternoons.
9) Do you request your books via an online catalogue, or through the librarian at your branch?
As long as you aren’t requesting an interlibrary loan book, you can do it either way. The only way to request interlibrary loan books is through the people who work the information desk.
10) Have you ever chosen a book on impulse (from the online catalogue OR the shelves) and had it turn out to be totally amazing? If so, what book was it, and why did you love it?
I do it all the time. The last one was Feeling for Bones by Bethany Pierce. I can’t really put my finger on exactly why I loved it other than it was very well written and it just really drew me in.
Anticipation
Posted on: 2 August 2009
Today’s Sunday Scribblings question: What are you looking forward to, for better or worse?
Angie stared straight ahead, not looking to the left, not looking to the right. Just staring straight ahead, not able to focus on anything. She could feel her nervousness deep down in the pit of her stomach. If only she could focus on something, anything. But there was nothing near her that offered any kind of distraction.
She needed a distraction. Something to take her mind of the clock. Something to make her stop hearing the clock, the sound of the second hand to taking what seemed like hours to tick from one second to the next. Something to take her mind off the burning itch that seemed to consume her wrists and ankles. If only she could go back in time or better yet just fast forward a bit. If only she could do something, anything to bring about an ending, whatever that ending might be.
Her eyes barely registered the heaviness they were beginning to feel. Her head growing heavy, her mind becoming fogged with sleep. Everything she’d just heard tumbled around in her head until it formed a jumble of words so thick she couldn’t comprehend anything any more. She knew that everything she’d said was true, but, mixed with everything everybody else had said, it made no sense. Hopefully they would figure out that someone was lying. Hopefully they’d realize that she was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Hopefully they’d realize this before it was too late, before something terrible had happened. Something that couldn’t be taken back.
She jolted awake as she heard the door clank open. “Come on, Angie. Get up. It’s time to go back to the courthouse. The jury’s made their decision.”
Another Reading Challenge
Posted on: 1 August 2009
I’ve decided to join another reading challenge: The Harry Potter Reading Challenge hosted by Galleysmith. I’m looking forward to starting this one because I’ve been wanting to reread all the books for a while now.
Here are the details for the challenge (taken from Galleysmith):
What: Read or listen to all seven books in the Harry Potter series
- Sorcerer’s Stone
- Chamber of Secrets
- Prisoner of Azkaban
- Goblet of Fire
- Order of the Pheonix
- Half-Blood Prince
- Deathly Hallows
When: The challenge will run from August 1, 2009 to July 31, 2010. I know we’re all busy with life and work and other such fun things so join up whenever you want, there are no deadlines to the challenge besides the end date above.
Where: E-to the Everywhere! Post reviews on your blog, chat about it on messageboards, post vlogs or podcasts, comment on and converse about it in the monthly post I create here on Galleysmith. It’s entirely up to you, as long as there is some evidence of your having completed each book along the way you are good to go.
How: Sign up to join in and play, cause you know….Harry would want you to and all! Then, post a kick off post on your blog and link it back up according to the details on the monthly HPRC post also available here on Galleysmith.
A Million Brilliant Shadows 