March in Review

It’s been a big month for our household; one involving career changes and relocations. I can’t believe that it has only been one month since we found out we were moving to Scotland. It feels like an eternity.

I’ve been a housewife for two full weeks now. I figured by this time I would have read 4 books and baked 5 dozen cookies, but apparently being a housewife is a ton of work that doesn’t allow for much free time. Of course, I’m in the midst of an international move so I’m sure once things settle down in Aberdeen, I’ll have plenty of time for book clubs and baked goods.

All things considered, my personal goals in March were pretty on par. Let’s recap.  

Reading: I read two novels: Swamplandia! by Karen Russell and South of Broad by Pat Conroy. Both were decent, but a bit disturbing. I've only read two books by Pat Conroy, but they both involved some pretty awful crimes against children. His novel Beach Music is on my 'Must Read' list and I'm assured by many that it's the best book ever written. I just hope that child abuse doesn't play a huge role because it really makes me sick to my stomach. He does write beautifully though, so I have to give him that. Definitely made me want to take a trip to Charleston, South Carolina.

On deck for April are two mystery novels: The White Lioness by Henning Mankell and In The Lake of The Woods by Tim O’Brien. My ex-coworker Marilyn and I had our own little book club. Before we met, she strictly read mysteries and thrillers and I read anything but mysteries and thrillers. We’ve done a great job of exposing each other to books we would have never discovered on our own. She lent me a few books in my final week of work that I am desperately trying to finish before we move. It’ll be a thrilling and mysterious month for sureJ.

I’m super excited to read the Tim O’Brien novel. If you’ve never read his book The Things They Carried, stop what you’re doing and go read it immediately. Seriously, one of my all-time favorites.  

Cooking: I only found time for one new recipe this month, but boy was it a good one. Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas! Yum, yum. It makes my stomach growl just thinking about it. Jonathan has already requested a repeat of this dish which means it was a huge success.

Stacked Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas; picture and recipe from Perry's Plate

This is one of those recipes that I absolutely love because you can change it up depending on your mood. You basically just choose 6-7 veggies that you like, roast them in the oven and then layer them with tortillas, spinach, and cheese for a delicious, cheesy, vegetarian enchilada lasagna. We’ve heard that the veggies are super fresh and reasonably priced in Aberdeen so we’re trying to round up some good vegetarian recipes. Let me know if you have any!

Writing:  I wrote in the ballpark of 15,000 words, only 5,000 shy from my goal of 20,000 per month. I’d say for such a hectic month, that’s not so bad. I’ve kept up my pace of blogging every weekday which is getting substantially harder as the move gets closer.

Four more weeks! It just doesn’t seem possible, but reality is definitely sinking in. I go back and forth between excitement and apprehension.  I’m terrified, but in a good way. It’s not brave, if you’re not scared, right?

In Review: February

Since it’s the last day of February and I’m trying to do anything to distract from the fact that we still haven’t heard about Jonathan’s job change, I figured I would briefly review my accomplishments for the month of February.

Travels: Ski trip to Breckenridge Colorado.

Recipes: Two new easy and scrumptious recipes have been added to my arsenal: Greek Pastitsio Casserole and Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Reading: I read 3.5 books this month: The Girls from Ames, The Paris Wife, and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I’m  currently stuck halfway through Swamplandia! By Karen Russel and I just can’t seem to get hooked. I’ll give it a few more days before giving up, but if I’m still not intrigued, I will move on to March’s reading list of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and Beach Music by Pat Conroy .

Writing: As for my writing goal of 20,000 words per month, that’s been a pretty colossal failure. I have been writing a blog post every weekday which has helped my word count and my blog, but being as though blog posts average about 400 words per post, this doesn’t keep me on track for such a lofty goal. Plus, it reminds me every day that my life is not that interesting and I have the feeling the continuing to blog at this rate is a bit of a stretch. I don’t know how long I can keep it up, especially since I’m running up against a particularly nasty case of writer’s block.

Once I shake off my funk and start working on some short story/novel/essay ideas I have, I think 20,000 words per month might be more realistic. I just don’t want to start in my current uninspired state of mind. That’s my excuse this week anyhow.  With twelve hours left in the month, I’ve currently written in the ball park of 13,000 words. All in all, I’d call it a pretty good month.

Reading List

In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwelll, I read that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. Unfortunately, the only things I’ve spent a fraction of that much time on don’t help me to pay the bills. Over the course of my life, I guess I’ve become a a quasi-expert in 4 things: running, soccer, watching Gilmore Girls, and reading.

I’ve made great strides in the reading department over the past few months since I set a goal in August to read 2 books a month. For instance, it’s February 10, and I am deliberately stalling the completion of my second February book. Mainly because I don’t have a library card and it’s becoming an expensive hobby. In an effort to cut back on book spending, I started scanning my bookshelves for books I haven’t actually read yet. I uncovered Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), The Lost Symbol (Dan Brown), CrazyLove (Francis Chan) and Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen). Those four should theoretically keep me busy through April, but I can’t help feeling a bit uninspired by the list.

Other than CrazyLove and Jane Eyre to some extent, I am just not excited about another Dan Brown novel or Water for Elephants. I started reading both of these at some point and ended up getting stuck and moving on to something else. I’m on a streak of really creative, uplifting and beautifully written books and I don’t want to stop following new leads.

Maybe I’ll try reading CrazyLove and Jane Eyre next. The Water for Elephants movie is next on our Netflix queue so I’m hoping the movie will help to spark some interest. I’m actually one of those weird people who prefer to watch a movie before reading the book. In my eyes, the book is always better than the film so you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment to do it the other way around. However, if you watch the movie first, you're excited to uncover more details in the novel, rather than being perpetually disappointed when your favorite bits are left out of the movie version. In fact, that’s why I’m a bit excited to finally read Jane Eyre. I saw the 2011 movie recently and loved its haunting imagery, but definitely wanted more explanation on the love story. Like when I saw The Descendants, though I enjoyed the movie, at the same time I knew the book had to be even better.
As for The Lost Symbol, I’ll admit that there is a time and a place for Dan Brown books. I’m not going to act pretentious and say that I didn’t enjoy The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons, because I absolutely did. The DaVinci Code actually changed my perspective on a lot of assumptions we make about Jesus based on centuries of unchallenged organized religion. I don’t necessary put any stakes in the theories he presented in the book, but it did make me go “So what if Jesus was married?” and realize that it’s okay to challenge and question even the most accepted religious ideas.

I’m getting off on a tangent, but the point is, maybe I should keep an open mind and give The Lost Symbol another try. I did just order Swamplandia by Karen Russell so I’ll be able to throw in something fresh if I get into a rut.
Also, I previously posted about using novels as a way to learn about geography and travel. I recently bought a book recommendation guide titled: “Book Lust: To Go”. The author, Nancy Pearl, makes reading recommendations based on geographical locations. I think it will be a good resource and help me with the constant nagging question of 'What's next?' in terms of both travel and reading lists.

Last week I also challenged myself to the goal of writing 5,000 words per week. I’ve adjusted this to 20,000 words a month just because it’s easier to keep track of and some weeks I overcompensate while others I’ll lag a bit behind.

Two weeks into February, I’m hovering around 3800 words, so I’m worried that my eyes are bigger than my stomach so to speak. I do find that writing has a snowball effect in that the more I write, the easier it is. Practice makes perfect. Hopefully one day I’ll add writing to a list of things I’m an expert in. At least that has the potential to generate some income.

Welcome to my dark side. Ranting starts now.

If all is well that ends well, does that mean that all that ends badly, is bad? Exhibit A: LOST.

For 6 years, I invested myself emotionally into the TV series LOST. I enjoyed the symbolic references, the in depth character development and the intricate plot lines. There was such a build up for the finale of LOST. Jonathan and I treated it like it was a holiday. A few months ahead of time we rewatched seasons 1-5. For the finale we bought our favorite snacks, bought a nice bottle of wine (aka more than $8) and watched with anticipation, waiting for all of the mysteries of LOST to finally be explained. While Jonathan was satisfied with the lackluster touchy feely ending, I was infuriated. I steamed over it for weeks, identifying greatly with this video .

There were just too many unanswered questions. It seemed the writers dragged the series out, backed themselves into a corner and then ignored 90% of the questions they posed. They developed everything so well and then they (in my eyes) ruined it by rushing the ending. Afterward, they defended their disregard for the disregarded storylines, explaining that they wanted the audience to create their own answers. You know what I call that? LAZY. Cowardly. Maybe even a little bit unethical. Now I could reveal my mega-nerdness by writing 20 blog posts on the subject, but the point of this blog post is possibly even more distressing. Exhibit B: The Hunger Games. Oh, my sweet and perfect Hunger Games, what did your author do to you? When I read book one of the trilogy, I couldn’t wait to read books 2 (Catching Fire) and 3 (Mockingjay). However, with an extreme amount of self-discipline, I waited to indulge myself in the final 2 books during my trip to Hawaii. (Reading a great novel by the pool with a perfect view of Molokai was truly a life affirming experience. You should try it sometime.) Catching Fire (Book 2) was a great book. Not quite as tailored and poised as the first, but still among one of my favorite books of all time. Mockingjay, the final book, almost made it there. Almost. If it just weren’t for the last chapter.

After all the effort Suzanne Collins went through to weave a perfect story and create authentic, vulnerable characters, the end just felt rushed in comparison. In a trilogy that seemed so effortlessly written, I couldn't help but feel like the ending was forced. I wondered to myself if Collins had the pressure of a deadline causing the abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion to the Katniss Everdeen story. Maybe she just got sick of it. Maybe she just got lazy.

But I just have to imagine, that with as attached as I felt to her characters, she must have been that much more involved. I won’t spoil it for you, and it definitely was not as infuriating as the ending of LOST, but the ending feels simply incomplete. She could have made an entire book out of the last chapter of Mockingjay, and maybe she plans to. I just can’t imagine that she would just “give up” at the conclusion of the series.

And if that weren’t bad enough, examine Exhibit C : The LSU tiger football season. After what was being hailed as the best SEC season of all time, the undefeated Tigers failed to perform at the National Championship game vs Alabama, a team they had already defeated in the regular season. And LSU didn’t just get beat; they were humiliated.

The Tiger offense only got past midfield once during the entire game. I’m used to rooting for the team that does the humiliating, not the other way around. It was humbling to say the least.

Sorry to be such a bummer today.

Maybe it’s like Ben F.’ The Bachelor’ said to Ashley Hebert when she rejected his proposal “Good things don’t end unless they end badly”.

Maybe so, Ben F., maybe so.

Historical Fiction

It’s coming down to the wire again. Here we are on the last day of November (seriously, where did November go?) and I’ve got 60 pages left to finish The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. If this were one of those 31 day months, it’d be no problem, but as it is, I’ve got to find about an hours’ worth of time today to meet my reading deadline.

Well hello there, lunch break!

For December it’s on to my first Michener as I tackle Hawaii. I always like to read at least one historic novel before I visit a place, and since Maui is on the agenda for January I figured I’d attempt the guru of all historic novelists.

I’m a travel junkie, but a full time job and limited funds make my actual travel ability much more infrequent than I’d like. I’m adding places to my list at a much faster rate than I am checking them off. Reading is a great way to be a fly on the wall of a place I might be unable or too intimidated to travel to.

The Historian has added several spots to my travel wish list including the French Alps, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Kostova’s vivid descriptions allow me to at least travel there in reverie.
(French Alps...sigh....)
Some other books that I have read that either enhanced my travel experience or inspired me to dream of a new locale include:
-Outlander (series) by Diana Gabaldon- I originally started the saga as a way to learn some Scottish history before our 2009 trip. It’s a great resource for learning about the history, language and culture of Scotland. As the series goes on, you get a glimpse of the influence of the Scottish on early American history and culture, especially in the Appalachia region.

-Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt and A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle: Ireland.
-Molokai by Alan Brennert: Molokai, Hawaii
And this sounds really cheesy, but the Twilight series really made me want to visit Washington State and the Pacific Northwest.
There are loads more, but I’ve got some reading to get to. What about you? I’d love some pointers on new books.

ps. I tried to publish this on November 30, but the internet was down. Since I'm new to this whole blogging thing, i can't figure out how to back date it.