50 Shades Darker

I finally finished 50 Shades Darker. I did not enjoy this one as much as the last. It was still good, just not as good. From here on out there will be spoilers.

Yeah, we get it. You're not hungry for food. Real clever, please get over it.

Now, I don't know how other girls would react in bad situations but as for me I know there's a time and place for discussing "us". Rushing away from the bad guy in the middle of the night not knowing if the bad guy had come to kill you or come to kill herself or if you're being followed, is neither the time nor the place to  ask, again, whether you're enough for him. First of all, at that very moment there are more important things to be thinking or talking about. Like survival. Like getting to a safe place. Like being quiet and letting him handle it. Second, he's a guy. Guys don't think like us. Yeah it's been nagging at the back of her mind and gnawing at her and she has to get it out, but to him that's the last thing on his mind. His mind is entirely filled with how to keep her safe. I doubt any guy would have the mental capacity or ability to even fathom why anyone would ask something so silly as "do you desire more than what I can give you" at a time like that.

Some of the sex has gotten repetitive. I'm glad the author started leading into it then switching to later that day. I mean not all of it was bad, just some of it was old. Like how many times a day can they do it before you start rolling your eyes and going "again"?

I was just waiting for the inappropriately early marriage proposal and here it came. I wonder that she was all surprised and annoyed her mom was asking if she was pregnant. Well, aren't most marriages that happen within the first 2 months of being together because of pregnancy?

The birthday party scenes were a little mashed together. Like there were a few different things that the author wanted to do but couldn't decide so she decided to throw them all together.

Now, by no means does any of this make it a bad book. And I especially liked that ending bit. Definitely makes me want to read the third one! We'll have to see how that one goes. This one took way longer, in part, because of my giant crochet project moving onto a step that I can't look away from the project, so I couldn't read and sew at the same time anymore. (btw, it's a blanket with cross-stitched butterflies on top, I'll post a picture when I'm done) I seem to be better at pointing out faults than pointing out goodness. So just assume the stuff I complained of is all the bad and everything else about it is good, mindless fun.

Crosswords- Closer to Completion

A few weeks ago someone at Victor's work gave him a box of newspapers the were going to recycle so we could use them as fire starter. So I went through and pulled out all the comics and puzzles. Cause, yeah, I read the comics online at Go Comics but they just don't have all the ones I'd like to read daily, so it's fun to read the ones from the paper when I get the chance. And also, while I do have some puzzle books it's fun to do the paper puzzles sometimes. Plus I'm actually discovering I like sodoku! *gasp*

Anyway, my point is, I've been doing alright at crosswords. I am awful at crosswords normally. I think the only crosswords I've ever fully finished have been the ones Star Wars Insider used to publish. But I've been doing pretty good lately. I haven't finished one but I've gotten closer. My big deal with crosswords is that a lot of the time the normal word that most people would think of fits cause it has the right number of words. You might even get lucky and have a crossing word with a letter that fits perfectly with this new word you thought of. ...and then later you find that what was actually the right word is some obscure word only about 2% of the population has ever even heard of. Well, moving on. I've gotten some of these things right from reading fiction. And I don't mean from knowledge of the universe itself, I mean for some of the non-fiction details. For people who say "bleh you should be reading something educational", well guess what? There's been a few times I've sat there smirking to myself going, "Thank you, Harry Potter!" or "Thank you, 50 Shades!" or "Thank you, Neopets!"  and etc. Cause without them I wouldn't have known these things. I didn't have to be in the real world for these things to sink into my memory. So they were fun to experience, and I learned something! Did it help me in the real world? Maybe not but I feel a lot better about myself for having gotten that crossword just a bit more finished.

And in other, slightly related news, I had started Sense and Sensibility as my night reading book but I decided that I was generally too tired at night to really enjoy it so I brought it downstairs to read during the day. (btw, expect me to simply compare book and movie when I get done reading it as I feel that a book that old and popular is impossible to truly review because I could not possibly say anything that has not been said a hundred times before) So last night I started reading National Geographic's Mysteries of the Ancient World. I'm only a few pages in but so far I really like it! It opens the imagination. I like the story telling way of writing it has. Like how the flashlights looked like torches, the guide had his hand up like he was making a carving, they stepped out into the cold winter day much like the ice age hunters might have, it was all very interesting. I can't wait to go to bed tonight so I can read some more!

The Robots of Dawn

So I finally finished reading The Robots of Dawn, by Isaac Asimov. The non-spoiler review is that it was boring, too drawn out, and had a stupid ending. Also there was a scene in which the bad guy good guy cheats on his wife. I almost stopped reading at that point but I had already trudged through 300-some pages so I was too far to just stop there. I am not inclined to try his other books. The rest of this will have spoilers.

I'd say a good 90% of it is straight dialogue. Which is boring. Everyone just talked and talked, and a lot of it was circular. No one wants to read about 3-4 pages of someone discussing which word to use in a situation and what meanings different people might ascribe to it. Boring! Anyway, if I took out all the meaningless stuff the book would be about 200 pages shorter at least. Finally after spending 400 pages over-thinking and over-talking everything it's like the author came to that point and realized "Hey, I talked myself into a corner here and have no way to end this book! So I'll throw in this lame-ass 'magic caused it' ending." Really. You go through 400 pages of detective stuff and talking out a solution to the mystery and then at the end everything that had happened in the book is pointless because magic made it happen. btw, I have no respect for someone who can stomach writing the "good guy" as someone who is flippant about cheating on his wife. I mean maybe I just got unlucky and this is his worst book. But he's presumably one of the top 3 best scifi authors. But I just don't see it. Maybe this sorta thing would entertain bored teenagers/young adults of the 50s or 60s, with its descriptions and dialogue. I can see how it would transport pre-tv and pre-internet people into another world. But this book was written in, I think, 1983 or something.

btw, Victor says I completely missed the point. He claims the point is that the robot who can magically read minds has to obey the three laws regardless. Bleh, really? That's what we wasted 400-some pages on? He could have made the same point with a short story, 12 pages tops. To me the point is that he started writing something, had no idea what he was doing or where he was going, threw together a sloppy story just to squeeze out one more paycheck book and every so often decided "no, no, that doesn't make sense so I'll throw this on there" and then after 400 pages decided "oh, crud. I've written so much and now I can't figure out how to talk my way out of this corner I've backed myself into through over-thinking everything and I'm sick of this, I'll just end it with magic and claim that was the point of all this." I mean, I get it. I even sympathize. It's really easy to over think what you write and find yourself without a solution. Magic's the easy way out. If I was sick of my own long and drawn out story and just wanted to end it I'd do the same thing. I'd tidy it up and even throw in a few things in earlier scenes to make magic a plausible solution. It's annoying that he wasted so many pages and so much of my time, but I do understand that part. However, I do not understand why he had to trash his main character. While the wife cheating did have a point it could have easily been done a different way. Such as, maybe he was too weak to eat at the table so she brought him soup in bed and waited till he was done eating so she could make sure he actually ate it all and then as soon as he finished eating she could have stood up to take the empty bowl and spoon when he said what he said, cause if she needed to hear what he said in his sleep it's real easy to do so without doing something horrid with his supposed "good guy".

50 Shades

So I just finished reading 50 Shades of Grey. I must say it's not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact I kinda liked it. There's a lot more depth to it than I thought there would be, seeing as it's a Twilight offshoot and Twilight has no depth. There is indeed some freaky stuff in it, but only a few things that I didn't like. And a lot of it's all in the character's head. For example, he's taking her gliding, which actually I thought they were going to go hang gliding but turns out it's when you get taken up in a small plane and glide your way back down. Well anyway, she's never done it before and he's helping her get set up. Well if it were me I'd have no idea when I'd be ready or the plane would be ready and I would want someone telling me when it was ok to get in. But when he tells her she's good to go she's all "god he's such a control freak, so bossy". I'm like "What? That's not bossy." Now, I haven't read the other two books, so maybe the freak-stuff gets more in depth later, but we'll see. There were some unrealities in there (really, he's nearing 30, I doubt he can go 3 times within the same hour, also she has unrealistic reactions sometimes, especially at first) but, come on, what do you expect from the nature of the book? It's fantasy. If he needed her guidance or she was left unsatisfied, that's just not a great fantasy. I get that, and I can deal with it even if it is irritating sometimes.

Before you make fun, like I used to, go ahead and give it a read. Don't expect much. Go into it with the lowest expectations you've got. Maybe that's how I enjoyed it, lol. I went into it expecting it to be awful. In fact I was only reading it out of curiosity and so I could make fun of it. But, no. I have little to make fun of and I believe I've already mentioned what I would make fun of if I felt like going in depth, which I don't.

Oh, one thing that really, really irritated me was that she calls her computer "the mean machine". omg that is one of the most annoying things I've ever heard anyone call a computer.

Well, here I go, off to read the second book!

Disney's Star Wars

Unfortunately they say that these new movies will be originals based on no books, which, yes, is a good thing in a way because they won't have a book they can mess up. However, this is bad because there is about 17 years worth of books here and I don't think anyone would be too happy about them writing all of that out of canon.

Found this picture on google, it was titled as being Mark Elwood's.

The books and movies have, admittedly, crossed one another in the past. Anyone remember the Jedi Prince series? hahaha, and Splinter of the Mind's Eye? Isn't that still considered canon as a dream Luke had or something? I heard newer copies have him waking up at the end? (please confirm if anyone has such a copy as none of mine say it, though all I have is an original 1979 edition and one from, like, 2000 or something) You see, you just need to look at it as we're in the very far future. Remember, it was a long time ago. And archaeologists are uncovering more and more information. Imagine information we know now about our own Earth's history, and think back to, say, the early 1900s, a hundred years ago. What are the differences between history as we knew it then and as we know it now? And so the history of that galaxy far, far away is still being discovered. Certain things we used to think of as one way are close but not quite. For example, Boba Fett is in fact not Jaster Mereel, though he wears Jaster's armor and Jastor was basically his adoptive grandpa. See? We were close, but not quite.

Click to make larger so you can read the text.

Any movie set in NJO time would have spoilers. What if it's set after Vector Prime? Star by Star? There are events in those books that I would hate to have spoiled for me due to the movies. Course I suppose people said the same thing when the prequels came out, which is what started the whole "should my kids see OT and then PT or PT and then OT?" debate. Which, btw, having had my own baby now I have to make a decision. I have no clue what I'm going to do, I really don't.

Another concern are actors who don't take things seriously. I can see them running around like it's a big joke or Halloween going "I'm a Jedis look at my lifesaver!" and making Wookiee (oops, should I spell that "Wookie"?) calls and Vader breathing. Yeah, we get it. This isn't a game. It's serious. This isn't your 6-year-old's birthday party. It's for real. If you're going to do this do it with all your heart or get out. This is not a comedy. Also, very known actors should stay away. I'm talking to you Angalina Jolie and Nicholas Cage! I swear if either of them sign up I'm not seeing it.

What if they pick Shia LaBeouf as Jacen for an Indiana Jones tie-in. omg I think I'd rather stab my own eyes out than see that. (for the unknowing, Jacen is Han's oldest son)

Zac Efron, however, has my full permission to be Jacen. In fact, might I say that it was this thought that calmed me the most after the big news. Would they actually do it? Who knows. A girl can dream though, right?

Another thing is funding. How will the costumes look? Will they be as carefully made as the rest of the movies costumes were? Or will they basically be cheap cotton, bedsheets basically, sewn into robes? Will the lightsabers obviously reveal sink pipe origins or will they look well made? I guess what I mean is, will this have the look of a fan film? Or will it look realistic? Will it look like anyone cares? Will it be rushed to give us more more more? Will they put as much effort into it as the other 6? Remember the first Land Before Time? It was awesome, wasn't it? Now there's, what, 12 of them? People stopped caring after the first few. And, remember, Disney is famous for its sequels. The first is a hit so they cram in another and it's not even 1/4 as good a the first. Very, very rarely do they manage to get out a sequel that's actually good! Will it be corny and stupid? Remember the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers? They'd totally kick the Samurai Warrior's butt (or at least Tommy could... single handedly...). And there's been how many generations of rangers now? I can't keep up. After Mighty Morphin there's only been one other generation that was actually good. (Galaxy! Cause they had the Magna Defender... teehee) I know people want more more more. And that's how we wound up with the Clone Wars cartoons which are horrendously bad. I can't believe they're still letting Filoni have his sick, sick way with Star Wars. Why? Cause we're greedy people who can't leave well enough alone!

...but one of the biggest worries I have is this. In the Empire of Dreams documentary George Lucas is saying that when he originally made ANH he was almost done when he realized it needed a soundtrack. Which is when he met John Williams. He says that if he had not chose John Williams he doesn't think the movie would have been as much of a success as if he'd used music from the day. But John Williams is 80. They want to make 3 more movies and then another movie every so often? He won't live forever, people, and Star Wars is not Star Wars without John Williams, so I dearly hope they've considered that.

hate thinking up titles

Since Tommy is on medicaid still or Healthy Kids I guess his insurance card reads, and he'll be on it for a year, at the end of which they probably renew it with maybe Chip or something? I don't know. We'll see when we get there. We figured we'd go ahead and find him an actual doctor. Besides his belly button was making me nervous. So we got him a regular doctor who's not specifically a pediatrician but can deal with children. Dr. Schmidt I believe his name was. Very nice man, did really well with Tommy. He was patient, asked questions, gave answers, gave Tommy an exam, and got the nurses to give him his 2 month shots. Poor boy. I held him on my lap and he just screamed and screamed. I didn't have baby tylenol so one of the nurses gave him a dose. I picked some up later and gave him two more doses over the rest of the day (his shots were around noon). His temperature did rise a little but not drastically. I tried feeding him when we got home and he puked. Tried a little later and he spat that up too. But after that he slept and slept. I switched him to soy formula then, figuring we might as well get all his trauma out of the way at once. This was Friday. Well, yesterday morning he slept for 5 hours!

During those 5 hours I watched Brave, which I know isn't a 5 hour movie, I'm just saying that during that I did that. So it was pretty good. I've seen a few of the trailers and they had barely anything to do with what actually happens in the movie. I'm not disappointed though. Personally, I think the story could have gone one of 3 different ways and this just happened to be the one they picked. If you don't want spoilers skip the rest of this paragraph and continue reading at the next one. So, the 3 different ways I thought it could go were: Mother becomes human again, which is what they picked. Mother remains bear and dies. Merida redeems Mor'du and turns him into a human again and they fall in love. I'd like to have seen that last one. But then the movie would have been a lot longer and not as soft and fluffy.

So, Tommy's grown quite a bit. He's 12lbs 12oz and 23" tall. It's amazing to think how big he's gotten! He's outgrown a lot of his newborn size and has almost entirely switched over to 0-3. In fact the overalls he's wearing today are 6-9 months but they're the same size as another pair of overalls I have that say they're 0-3. So I dunno.

Last night he woke me up once. Once!! We went to bed around 10, with a last feeding then, he woke me up around 2:30, and then we got out of bed just before 8:00 with another feeding. Awesome! I do hope he keeps that up. I don't know if that was the shots or the formula. Today he's been cranky but he's a bit constipated so that's understandable. So far though I think I like the formula. We'll see in another day or two after he's finished adjusting to it, but tentatively, I think it was a great switch for him. It's enfamil prosobee. We used to have him on gerber goodstart gentle.

It is so weird to think right now that it's the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I'm used to being panicked and rushed and stressed beyond belief. And this year... here I am. Just chilling. Taking care of my baby, reading, crocheting, puttering around the house cleaning. If you'd asked me in years past my stress level on a 1-10 scale I'd have said 20. Now? eehhh, we'll go with 3.

Also, saw the new Spiderman. I never saw the old ones and I've never read the comics. I knew some basics about the story but that's it. So coming from basically a newbie standpoint I'll say I really liked it. I'll see the sequel when it comes out.

Gamesmaster Challenge starts tomorrow at Neopets! It'll be my first big event with the baby. There was a Halloween event, Masks of Dread, but it took seconds to do that and you could stop inbetween things. Gamesmaster Challenge is a week long gaming event where I'll be having to play games that don't pause and, unless it's an easy one, I can't just drop everything and lose my score if Tommy needs me. So I'll have to try and do it while he's sleeping. I'm so glad it's not Daily Dare yet. Daily Dare is a month long event. Gamesmaster Challenge is like a mini Daily Dare. And then next event will be the advent calendar next month.

*ahem* >_>

So my book reading is going nicely. I'm still struggling through Robots of Dawn. It finally started to pick up around page 80. I dunno, I just don't find it interesting to discuss various generally accepted meanings behind a word for 3 whole pages. Anyway, I know how it's going to work out, I just have no idea how it's going to take so long for the story to resolve seeing as I'm only 152/419 pages in. Possible spoilers ahead! Remember in KOTOR 1 when you're on Dantooine and you run into that woman who says her droid is missing and you find the droid and he tells you that the woman's husband died and he's the replacement? You have the choice of destroying him saying it's not healthy for her to be with a droid and she needs a human or you can make him go back to her. Yeah, I say this robot who was "killed" self destructed cause he didn't know how to follow the 3 robot rules. Should he bring her happiness by being there for her or is being there for her hurting her in the long-run? Boom, head explode. Mystery solved. Dunno, maybe it's just cause I played KOTOR 1 but I don't see why I figured it out and he didn't. Course I don't know, maybe there's more to it and I'm wrong. There has to be something that happens in the next 267 pages. And I just got done with the part that I figured it out from too.

 ...and in other news, I, ah... got curious and kinda started reading 50 Shades of Grey. ._. Don't judge me, I was curious! *whisper* ....I'm enjoying it... Ok, now you can judge me! But never fear! I'm not totally lost! I have not made it to the bdsm parts, and as I'm not into that I might stop reading then. But I had to give it a chance, right? So many women buying them up? I had to see what the fuss was about. But so far I like it in a "lame crappy fanfic" kinda way. And, yes, I know it started as a Twilight fanfic. It shows. I think, so far, this is one of those books you have to go into it expecting it to suck. I did and while it is better than I thought it would be (so far) it's still totally on a fanfiction level. Kinda like how Twilight is written as though it were a fanfic of itself, 50 Shades (so far) seems to be written in the same style of fanfictionery. I can't really explain what the difference is between a fanfic author and a real author but there is a definite difference. Or maybe the difference is in my mind, because I went into this knowing it was a fanfic. Dunno, though, cause Twilight struck me as being fanfictionous and it isn't. hm. So far I'm about to start chapter 9. Further review to follow after the freakshow starts! btw, fast read. I've been working on Robots of Dawn for like 2 weeks, but I just started this book last night. I do get the feeling my "this is better than I thought" remark will bite me in the next chapter or two cause it looks like the weirdness is about to start.

book reviews

I am a little behind on my books. I finally finished the Grimms Fairy Tales. No need to review that, except to say that I'm actually glad I'm done with it. It went so slow cause it was what I read while I fed the baby at night. Now that I'm done with that Victor's making me read a physics for beginners type of book at night. (well, he's not really making me, but he pushed me to)

So I read The Girl She Used to Be, by David Cristofano. There's mild spoilers in here. It's about a woman who saw someone get murdered when she was a kid and her parents saw it too, and they went into witness protection and gave testimony, which did nothing cause the guy is still free. The book starts with her bemoaning her horrible life and how she's had so many names, all of them her own fault. Cause, you see, she can't keep her stupid mouth shut. The beginning also shows us that her current job is that of a teacher, and she's grading papers. Instead of grading them on the actual work done she is grading them on their personalities! The beginning also shows us her calling her witness protection person with a lie that she was threatened and needed to be moved... because she was bored! She whines about how her life is horrible and how the government made her life miserable and what an awful program she's in. But you know, if she just followed the rules she'd have been fine. She could have stayed with one name and lived the rest of her life happy and in one place at one job and etc. Well during the move this time she thinks about how awful things are (again), that she's always put in rundown motels with paper-thin walls and she thinks about how "generous" they are in irritatedly buying her a snack cake at a gas station. How they gave her cheap hair dye and generic soap and "clearly didn't know a woman's needs" (I believe she was talking about wanting mascara or complaining about not being given a floral scent or something). Then the son of the guy she saw murdering someone comes along and sneaks right past security and tells her he's coming back the next day for her. She doesn't tell on him and in fact goes with him the next day. He whisks her away in an expensive car, gives her an expensive name brand sweater, takes her to eat a gourmet meal at a fancy restaurant. Already seeing how crime is glorified here? Well, she's found by her protectors and given another chance and instead goes to great effort to track down the guy, and get him to pick her up. He then takes her to a fancy hotel and gives her a whole day at a spa and they go out to eat at a restaurant but cause they can't decide what to order they order "a sample of everything". This whole time she asks him over and over if he's killed people, how badly has he hurt people, and being fidgety about his links to crime. She finds out he'd done a horrible mutilation to someone and was freaked out by it. But you know what happens? A guy attempts to mug them in an alley and while he's making fun of the guy and breaking his ankle and stuff she gets all into it and is excited and cheering him on and then she tells him to do the same mutilation to this guy. Now, while mugging is bad I don't think she should have jumped to that right away after having spent the last day being edgy about his links to crime and being fidgety about whether or not he's hurt people. It just seems extreme. (he doesn't listen to her) All this while she thinks she's falling in love with him, but in reality I think she's falling in lust and is simply after him cause of the excitement. She's even asking him to marry her the next day. The plan is to take her to his family's house and hope they take her in. btw, this whole time he has openly admitted to stalking her. He's followed her name to name, place to place, watching her, and finally the rest of his family was getting restless for him to kill her and that's why he finally "rescued" her. And she likes this, makes her "love" him more cause he knows her. I won't give away the ending but it's the reason I got rid of this book. Yes I just listed a lot of bad, but that's on close inspection. I read the book in about 3 days and enjoyed it very much. I think if the ending had been different I could have overlooked the silly, weird, and eye-brow raising. But I think the ending made me look into it deeper for things to not like. And, if given the chance, I can find bad in just about anything and go on and on about it. Apparently there's a sequel written from the guy's point of view. I would be interested in reading that to see if it makes the first book any better. Maybe I'll see if the library has it. I haven't gotten rid of it entirely just yet, it's still on the shelf waiting to be taken away, so if the sequel goes past the end of the first book and makes everything better I'd keep the first book too and probably re-review it with happier things to say about it.



On a lighter note I also decided to read Sanctuary, by Faye Kellerman. I thought I wouldn't like it, it being another mystery novel I picked up at random. But I enjoyed it. It's apparently part of a series of this detective and his wife. I don't know how the rest of the series is, but this one prominently featured Jews. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just that I don't know the terminology, or the deeper aspects of the religion. I know the basics, but that's it. So I believe a fraction of the book probably passed right over my head. Anyway, this book was about a diamond dealer and his family disappearing and then another disappears and are they related? It's better than I make it sound, I think I've been too negative with everything I review. It's just so much easier to talk about what's bad than what's good. The detective winds up in Israel looking for the families (wow, to just be able to hop on a plane and go to another country... this book is set in the early 90s I think), and he takes his wife with him cause she speaks Hebrew or whatever it was. I won't give away how things go, but I really liked this book. And though the Jew stuff was a bit much for me at times I think I would still give other books in this series a try, especially if it's toned down in the other books. The only bad thing I will say is that it took me a few chapters to really get into it. But after that I couldn't put it down.

Currently I'm struggling through Robots of Dawn, by Isaac Asimov. Dunno how known this book is but so far I am, as I said, struggling. I'm not giving up on it but I do hope it gets better.

free stuff

I was cleaning up my bookshelves to make more room for stuff and I have a pile of books I'm going to get rid of. If you want something send me a message or something and I'll get it to you. Whatever you guys don't want I'm going to donate. This post is for friends and family only cause you guys are the only ones I'm willing to give free stuff to. Any random stranger happens on this post and wants something I'd be happy to make an ebay sale.

"The Girl She Used to Be", by David Cristofano
Amazon says: When Melody Grace McCartney was six years old, she and her parents witnessed an act of violence so brutal that it changed their lives forever. The federal government lured them into the Witness Protection Program with the promise of safety, and they went gratefully. But the program took Melody's name, her home, her innocence, and, ultimately, her family. She's been May Adams, Karen Smith, Anne Johnson, and countless others--everyone but the one person she longs to be: herself. So when the feds spirit her off to begin yet another new life in another town, she's stunned when a man confronts her and calls her by her real name. Jonathan Bovaro, the mafioso sent to hunt her down, knows her, the real her, and it's a dangerous thrill that Melody can't resist. He's insistent that she's just a pawn in the government's war against the Bovaro family. But can she trust her life and her identity to this vicious stranger whose acts of violence are legendary?

I say: The book starts with the main character in a teaching position and she is grading students by their personality and life, not by their actual schoolwork. The main character likes to create problems so she can whine about them. Yes, something bad did happen in her life. But she doesn't need to keep making it worse for the sake of spending pages and pages whining about what she's done. The "romance" in this book is stressed and unrealistic. If they had called the romance lust or infatuation, sure, I could buy it. Even if you'd called it lonely desperation on her part and stalkerism on his, that'd be fine. And for someone who goes on and on about her inexperience the main character throws herself around like she's used to this, or at least like she would never have really made it to 26 without a guy in her life. The ending is disappointing and would have been different had she not made another problem. The book also seems to glorify crime and the luxery it can afford while showing us how cheap and stupid the government is. And the main character gets sucked right into that and overnight justifies the violence it comes with and encourages it. However, if you read it without thinking too hard about things you should be good. I actually enjoyed it a lot and it was a fast read, cause I didn't pause to think about things too much. I think if the ending had been different I might have kept it.

"Gone", by Jonathan Kellerman
Amazon says: It’s a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu -battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor. The details of the nightmarish event are shocking and brutal: The couple was carjacked at gunpoint by a masked assailant and subjected to a horrific regimen of confinement, starvation and assault. But before long, doubts arise about the couple’s story, and as forensic details unfold, the abduction is exposed as a hoax. Charged as criminals themselves, the aspiring actors claim emotional problems, and the court orders psychological evaluation for both. Michaela is examined by Alex Delaware, who finds that her claims of depression and stress ring true enough. But they don’t explain her lies, and Alex is certain that there are hidden layers in this sordid psychodrama that even he hasn’t been able to penetrate. Nevertheless, the case is closed–only to be violently reopened when Michaela is savagely murdered. When the police look for Dylan, they find that he’s gone. Is he the killer or a victim himself? Casting their dragnet into the murkiest corners of L.A., Delaware and Sturgis unearth more questions than answers–including a host of eerily identical killings. What really happened to the couple who cried wolf? And what bizarre and brutal epidemic is infecting the city with terror, madness, and sudden, twisted death?

I say: I don't really read mystery novels, so I can't really judge it on that. Apparently this is part of a series, which I didn't know when I got it because the book has very little indication that it's part of a series. The amazon description shows more of that than the actual book does. Anyway, the main problem I had with this book is that there's too much description. No real person enters a room and instantly recognizes the brand and style of every piece of furniture, for instance. Yet this guy is a home dec and fashion genius and spends pages telling us every detail of everything he sees. Also the author seems to think everyone knows the streets of LA and rambles off street names like we're supposed to know what that means. Overall though, it's not bad. Like I said, I'm not really into mystery.

"Tears of the Moon", by Di Morrissey
Amazon says: Not since The Thorn Birds has the lush and romantic land of Australia been brought so vividly to life. Tears of the Moon is the thrilling and dramatic story of an endless love that overcomes all odds. Lily Barton's most prized possession is a beautiful tear-drop pearl pendant. Alone in the world, she has no idea where it came from or why she has it. But she is desperate to learn more of her forgotten past, to find her identity and claim her legacy, whatever it might be. Seeking everwhere for answers, she discovers her great-grandmother Olivia's diary. Across the years it reaches out to her, revealing the truth behind a love that is so profound, so passionate and so complete, that nothing can destroy the power of its magic.

I say: It takes place in Australia, which was interesting since I actually didn't really know a lot about it before. This is more for older women, I think. The main character floats through life making friends wherever she goes. She also somehow looks native, yet doesn't guess she is, and when she finds out she's part native she gets angsty about it. ...doesn't seem to bother her she's only 1/5th native. I think that's how the math works. It's her great-great-great grandma who was native. Hardly anything to get angsty about as if it is something that's going to change your entire life. It was a neat history though, and though there's just too many coincidences to be real, it was a decent book. I really had to think about if I wanted to be rid of it or not, but I think I do. As for the love story itself, eh, it's not bad. It's more of a crushing from a distance till we're old people kind of love story.

"The Lost World", by Michael Crichton

I think we all know what this is. The 2nd Jurassic Park movie. I'm only getting rid of this cause I seem to have 2 copies somehow. Also I linked to this one cause it's the cover variant I have.

"The Outlaws of Sherwood", by Robin McKinley
Amazon says: The classic tale of Robin Hood gets a new lift as real flesh-and-blood outlaws, on the lam from the gallows and the sword, fight for the sake of justice. Robin and his merry cohorts swing through the forest in these fresh additions to the timeless stories

I say: Again, linked to this one cause it's the cover I have. It's been about 3 years since I read it so I don't remember it too well. I do remember it was a struggle to get through cause I didn't like the writing style. The ending was also kinda lame.

"River God", by Wilber Smith
Amazon says: For Tanus, the fair-haired young lion of a warrior, the gods have decreed that he will lead Egypt's army in a bold attempt to reunite the Kingdom's shared halves. But Tanus will have to defy the same gods to attain the reward they have forbidden him, an object more prized than battle's glory: possession of the Lady Lostris, a rare beauty with skin the color of oiled ceder--destined for the adoration of a nation, and the love of one extraordinary man.

I say: Take this book if you want an ok story and a good laugh. The main character is the best at everything. He's either THE best in all of Egypt or he's among the top 3 but considers himself the best anyway. Yet he's a slave. But not just any slave. He's the absolute best. I mean, if you want to look up Marty Stu all of his characteristics are to be found here. It's almost as if the author did it on purpose as a joke, except I think he was serious and that's sad. The only thing lacking is that he's not related to anyone famous and doesn't get with anyone famous. But if you ignore Marty Stu it's not really too bad, but unfortunately the story is told from his perspective.

"Shadow Walkers", by Nina Romberg
Amazon says: A group of runaway children seeks shelter in an abandoned mental hospital, where they form a secret club to protect the innocent, but the possessed building tranforms the children into beasts, bringing out their darkest instincts.

I say: Sounds good, right? Well this is one crazy book. It somehow manages to merge nazism and native american stuff into one big mystic ghost story. The kids find a room with old war memorabilia and it takes over the boys with "bad feelings" that are stored inside the items, and this makes them, well, nazis I guess and they start persecuting the girls or something and there's an Indian woman nearby who uses her magic to help them. There are also numerous plugs for the author's first book about the Indian woman.

baby update

I'm sorry it's been so long. The first few weeks I was healing, which included some golf-ball sized clots (good thing I got the blood transfusion on the 11th like they said I should!) and mild-shock or something from taking showers due to blood pressure rising and falling. And then bleeding started again after it had stopped. The midwives apparently don't answer their phones but the hospital said the clots were from too much activity. So I had to move downstairs to the couch for about two weeks. I took the bassinet with me. And despite my "I will never co-sleep cause I roll around too much" thoughts I have co-slept just about every night since he was born. It started at the hospital with him being in the plastic/glass case they had on the rolling bed thing for babies that the nurse moved to the bed for me so I wouldn't have to get up. Then the first night home I thought it was too cold for him to sleep by himself. Then I fell asleep by accident while feeding him. And then every night after he wound up with me by morning. These days I don't even bother trying to start him in the bassinet, I just bring him right to bed with us.

Let's see, my last post was on the 10th last month, wow. So, on the 11th they told us he had jaundice at 8.1. They said that they don't give out bili blankets or lights till you're at a 10 so we were safe to go home. The jaundice caused some problems. Like he'd sleep for 7 hours and not want to eat and he would fall asleep eating and I would have trouble waking him up. But to flush out the jaundice I would have to feed him and make sure he ate every 3 hours, about. A trip to the pediatrician on Friday the 14th told us that the computer thought his jaundice was at 12.7, and due to his nursing issues he'd lost a lot of weight. They wanted me to take him back to the hospital for monitoring on the weight and to be put under the bili lights. Well, the hospital is 2 hours away, it was evening already, and I had just got out of the hospital and it was my first day feeling well. We didn't go. I went with natural alternatives on the lights and just took him outside naked (except a diaper) for 15 minutes at a time for about 45 minutes a day. Cleared up by the 17th or 18th. As for the food issues? We gave him formula. I know I said I would never do that either. Well, he was having issues nursing, and I don't think I produce enough anyway cause pumping wasn't really working out for me. I don't think I really like the pediatrician up here anyway. The picture of her on the advertisement the hospital showed me for her made her look older, like late 30s maybe. But in person? When she came into the room I thought for sure she was a nurse. I even handed her the paperwork, which she then handed off to a nurse. She couldn't have been older than I am! You know, we can go to the health department for his vaccinations. We're going natural alternatives for anything else we need. I don't like doctors in general anyway. In fact I skipped my post-pregnancy checkup (I'm supposed to have another one either this Friday or next) and no one ever called me. The midwives told me what it would be, and it was to check to make sure my stitches were healing and to discuss birth control options. Well, we use over the counter methods and my husband has eyes enough to tell if my stitches are doing good. So there.

The 1-month weight and height check and all that said that he had gained back the weight he lost and was up to a decent weight again. In fact he's even a little pudgy now, lol. I think he's in a growth spurt right now though cause he's been eating more. He was eating 2 - 2 1/2 oz every 2-3 hours then he brought it up to 3oz. Now at night he's eating 2 1/2-3oz 2-3 hours and about 4oz during the day every 2-3 hours. He's still a small baby though, and he still fits newborn size even at 5 1/2 weeks.

His hair, which was dark at birth, has been turning colors. It started to get brown, then lighter brown, now it's growing in so blonde it's almost white at the roots. His eyebrows have also grown in and they're currently the brownish color his hair tips are. His eyes are gorgeous, and they're still blue. He still likes being swaddled, and loves to curl his legs up and cross his ankles. He used to make the perfect little "wah wah" cry but now it's more of a regular cry. He's learned who I am and when I bring him to my chest he snuggles his head in and puts his arms up like he's hugging me. And once when hiccuping he looked at me like I was supposed to help him stop them and his eyes looked hurt that I wasn't helping him and it broke my heart cause I googled it and there is nothing you can do for infant hiccups. His squish-nose has popped out and his pointy ears have rounded. His belly button is doing well, though it's still an outie, which is ok cause it looks great, it's just out instead of in. I'm not sure when they go in. His neck muscles are doing great and he can hold his head up pretty well, though not perfect. It still wobbles and occasionally falls to one side or the other (so when his head is up I have my hand near ready to catch it). He can easily roll from his back to his side and likes to sleep on his side. He had gas issues and kept drinking a lot of air so we bought him special playtex vent aire bottles that have helped him a lot. He is in size 1 diapers, despite them being for 8lb babies because the nbs weren't, ah, doing it in the leaking department. Besides, the pampers swaddlers the hospital gave me kept making his butt turn red and were rubbing the insides of his thighs wrong. He is very grabby and will grab his blanket, his burp cloth, my hair, his ears, my shirt, his own hands, and anything left near him that he can get his hands on. He has learned the art of pulling his pacifier out of his mouth.

He melts my heart almost every time I see him. He is the most precious, tiny, adorable, gorgeous thing ever. And he loves to be held, especially by me. Sometimes when I set him down he starts crying till I pick him back up.

The once nearly spot-less house I had in the week or two before he was born is a disaster. Everything is so disorganized. And I have no idea where to put the carseat and diaper bag so they're pretty much just sitting on the floor. But I am very slowly getting it organized. Doesn't help I decided to mount a bookshelf on the wall so I could move my movies over there and then I had shelf space on another bookshelf so I brought in 3 boxes of books to go through and organize and see what I wanted to put out and what I wanted to take back out to the shed. That's taken me over a week so far. I'm just about done though. Once those are out of here things will be better. I also have another box on the floor that had my pre-pregnancy pants and shoes in it. Yeah, the pants don't fit. Not a one. There are two that will go past the knee and they won't close. Really, my thighs are about the only place I got stretch marks and I guess they seriously bloated if not even my "fat day" pants fit! As for my shoes I am so happy to see them! I had packed up everything with heels. I don't really wear thin heels, I prefer clunky shoes with fat heels (mainly cause I'm clumsy), but I still didn't want to risk falling.

When Tommy's attached to me he's on my lap and on my arm and makes it hard to type, so I don't like writing much unless it's short. Partly why I guess I never updated. The other reasons are lack of time. I don't know how women do this with two kids, let alone more than that. It takes 30 minutes to feed him most the time, cause I like to stop and burp him a lot. Change the diaper and rock him a bit, get lost looking at his face, and that brings it up to 45 minutes. When I feed him I'm down a hand, so I usually read or play a game on the computer that only uses the mouse. I tend to be in bed 10-11 hours. Tommy keeps me up till 11. Then wakes up between 1 and 2:30. Then he wakes up again between 4:30 and 6. And again between 7:30 and 9. I tend to get out of bed around 10 (which includes another feeding if his last was at 7:30 and I wake up at 9:30). By time I get dressed and brush my hair and get him dressed and make the bed and get breakfast it's about 11. I do dishes every day to keep on top of it and I make dinner almost every night. And I am the only one doing feeding, so after a nighttime of waking up every 2-3 hours for about an hour each time I'm pretty exhausted. I've mostly gotten used to it by now but it's still hard and still puts me in a bad mood sometimes.

And then the other day I hurt my back and I don't know how but it still hurts. All I did was put my hand on a box and lean over to pick a book up off the floor and bam, spasm, I almost fall over, and later Victor said I had moved my cussax out of place, whatever that means. He pushed at my lower back and it felt better for a time. He has been rubbing me but it still hurts.

haha, spiky hair, mommy needs to stop petting him and getting hand oil all over his head. See his pudgy little cheeks? He had a bout of baby acne and I think you can sorta see that but it's mostly cleared up now. This is from 10/02. It's a Halloween onsie. The back has a kitty tail and says "bye".

Baby is here!

Thomas "Tommy" was born yesterday at 1:34PM, weighing 6lbs 10oz and was 20" long. Under the cut is the birth story, which is a bit long but I tried not to make it too detailed. There's pictures at the bottom.

cupboard

Health update: Blood pressure has gone down a lot but is still fairly high. Not like "We're going to induce you high" anymore, which is nice. But still "come in twice a week for an nst" high. Course that might also be cause of how close I am, dunno. Due on Wednesday!

So what have I done on bed rest? Nesting!

First, the organization: Bottom shelf will have cups and bottles, some of which I've already put in there. It has that no-slide rubber mat stuff on it. The top two shelves will have shelf paper eventually. The middle shelf will be for mixing bowls, plastic containers, large pans, and whatever else doesn't really fit anywhere. You can see colanders behind the fox plushie. Top shelf will be extra spices, sprinkles, other misc baking stuff (you can see cocoa and baking soda there), ziplocs, garbage bags, foil, etc. The rose was actually a window art thing but I took the chain off it and screwed it into the side instead. The other side will have a paper towel holder. I built this out of scraps we had in the yard. The only thing Victor did was cut the boards, and I let him help me with the paint color. Otherwise all the planning, marking, construction, painting, etc. was all me. I am very picture oriented. If I'd read a tutorial it would have made little or no sense to me. This cupboard was based on this picture:

I know, they're not the same. But it's what inspired me. And I do intend to run trim board around the top some day after I finish the ceiling. And don't worry about me having built it while I was supposed to be resting, I only need to rest for so long a day and not push it otherwise. I spent a good long week working on it.

another update

Just wanted to post an update. At Friday's appointment my blood pressure was really high. It's been kinda high this whole time, but Friday it had shot up even more. I was put on bed rest for 6 hours a day and have to go back Monday and Thursday. They want to check my bp and protein levels, and on Monday they want to check my potassium since I was running very low on that due to over-hydrating! They always say to drink a ton of water, especially when pregnant. So I was drinking as much as I could stand and turns out it was too much. And if my bp stays high or gets higher I'll be heading down to the hospital for monitoring, which could lead to interventions if that goes bad too. The place I go for my appointments is closed next Friday so I don't have another appointment scheduled till the 31st, so it's possible I won't have to go to any more appointments, that'd be nice.

So far having to lay this much is making my antsy. I want to get up and do stuff. I can't lay like this, it gives me headaches. So I've been switching between laying and reclining and sitting.

To entertain myself I've been crocheting while rotting my brain in front of episodes of "I didn't know I was pregnant" on youtube, which is fun but very mind-rotting. "What, no way I could be pregnant, I was on the rhythm method, and I don't care that it's one of the least effective methods!" "I've had 3 kids and yet somehow don't know what labor feels like!" "I have irregular cycles so I thought I couldn't get pregnant!" Wow, people, really? I mean, yeah, it can really happen if the right circumstances happen, like if you're fat or have an anterior placenta or something, or are normally kinda gassy, but some of these are just silly.

I also started reading Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales. I'm not really enjoying it as much as I thought I would though. I always knew the actual fairy tales were darker than you'd think, but they're also written in kiddie language. So if you told these to a kid they wouldn't get it. But an adult has to think about it a minute or two (or maybe that's just me) before going "Hey, wait, that woman was cheating on her husband with that guy!" or "So they died?" And then another which was about food I went "So basically the person who was telling this to their kids was starving and was trying to give their kids a fantasy to eat to try and keep them hopeful and happy while they sleep?" And others just make no sense at all. So this kid let the old woman burn to death? What's the point? This other kid found a box and a key and was going to open it and the story just stops there? What? I'm going to keep reading though cause it is entertaining.

I also have fabric cut out for a diaper bag. One of my sisters gave me one already though so I have that at least! It's really cute, but I've had this fabric set aside since like April or March. They're both different themes, colors, and have different pockets. So I have options for what I want to take out when.

And I have like 41 hours on Zuma's Revenge now, lol. I will beat Iron Frog someday! It's a super-hard mode and you have to get through 10 levels in one shot and if you lose on even one of those levels you have to start at the beginning again. I made it to level 7 once and only once. I usually die on level 4, though. Part of the problem is I don't get the right balls in the right order. Like I'll be on level 6 and every other ball is a different color. I need to match 3 colors together but the way the balls in the line are I can't. So I spend a while making doubles so I can throw the 3rd ball in and the line advances so my doubles go beyond my reach and I'm still making doubles cause I'm not getting the right colored balls to make any matches until the match I could have made is past! Which is very frustrating since it's completely random.

baby area

The next book I started reading was "The First Man in Rome" by Colleen McCullough. I'm not going to say it's a bad book, but... after a week and a half and only getting 54 pages into it I gave up. Now, again, I am not saying it's a bad book, really, I'm not. But I can't keep track of the characters, who they are, what their names are. And I mean no offense to Italians but all the names sound alike to me and what made me finally give up was I read like 8 pages about one guy before I realized that he was a character I'd already been introduced to in the beginning. I'm sure if I was into the language and the culture more I'd get it and be interested in it. It's just a bit too thick for me right now. Especially with my Pregnancy-Brain! Seriously, I got up like 3 times the other day to make dinner before I remembered why I was getting up. lol So I'm going to move on to something a little lighter and easier on the simple-minded. Not sure what yet.

But speaking of which, I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow! This morning we finally finished putting the wallpaper trim up. Had a hard time with that. It was supposed to be prepasted. Well the paste dried before I could get it up. After some research I found that prepasted means "buy paste anyway". So we did and now it's up and our "nursery" is done. Here's 3 pictures. I know the last one kinda shows everything, but I like all of them just so much.

I, Cleopatra

I finally finished reading I, Cleopatra by William Bostock yesterday. It took me longer than expected because of a few things. First I got caught up playing a video game, then I was down in town for work for a while. And I floundered some in the middle-ish when she's hanging out in Rome for what feels like forever.

Anyway, I actually really liked it. Apparently it's supposed to be pretty historically accurate (except for the childhood years, which the author notes he made up a lot of due to lack of info on that area of her life). It was written in the 70s though so who knows what we might have found since then. But either way, I enjoyed it. This one is recommended by me! Like I said up there, it held my interest very well and I zipped through the first bit in no time, then I got bored in the middle, then it picked up again. It is written in first person. Not really like a journal, but more like someone sitting there telling someone else their life story. Which was more or less the idea, since this "auto-biography" is her telling a scribe to write all this. The story starts with her birth and goes all the way up to where she's preparing for death. Then there's one more page after that written by someone else (in-story) that describes finding her after that. It is 749 pages, including the author's note.

One of the things that struck me most was the moral of the story: Men are worthless. :p If the men in her life had just shut up and obeyed her every whim she might have wound up being ruler of the world, lol. Or at least that's the idea I got from it all.

update

Update time!

My ribs are still pretty bad. Liver tests came back great, and all we can really do is just give me medicine to help with the pain. I did get prescription pain medicine, but I have yet to take it cause I don't feel the levels of pain I've had since getting it have justified taking any.

Embarrassingly enough, a lot of my back/hip pain was caused cause my thighs have bloated out and I never realized my underwear was cutting into them! So I went up in size and things are much better now.

I'm still religiously putting lotion on my stomach every morning and night to prevent stretch marks, so it was with great surprise that I found a few small ones on my left thigh the other day. I'd never thought of lotioning my thighs. Well, they're small and not very noticeable, so it's ok.

I can still touch my feet and tie my own shoe laces! But I have issues leaning forwards while sitting. I don't know what baby's doing some days but he can get into some pretty uncomfortable positions sometimes. He moves a lot. He's also big enough that poking at my tummy can reveal where he is. I can't tell what's what but it's neat to find him.

Things make me irritated easy. That's been coming on on and off for a while now. I can't really feel emotions properly, which is annoying. So if I'm not irritated I'm upset or depressed. And I've been getting daily headaches, which caffeine usually takes care of. Soda, not coffee. Coffee gives me worse headaches (always has), not sure why. And I hate Pepsi now (bizarre, used to be my favorite) so it's all Coke for me. I am sometimes not any of those three emotions but they're what I feel the most often.

Had an electrogram last month that showed the baby's heart is good, but they want to check it after he's born too just to make sure.

Nesting has been on and off for me and is rarely accompanied with energy. I am getting the house cleaned up and organized. Victor has primer up on the corner of the upstairs we'll be putting the baby in. He was going to paint today and probably still will.

Victor got a job at the grocery store in the little town near us. Last week was his first week.

On Wednesday I'll have 7 weeks left, though it could still go either way, more or less. I'm starting to get antsy about everything being ready. (I think I'd feel that way even if everything was absolutely perfect.) When I get back from working next week I'm going to start packing a hospital bag. I'm also going to start making that diaper bag I've had fabric sitting around forever for. Right now I'm working on crocheting a cardigan but I see a mistake I made in the first row. I'm only about 4 rows in so I'm just going to undo it and fix that. Also kinda worried about sizing. What if it's too small? It's NB size and I don't want to make it and have it too small. I've never made clothing before but maybe I'll look over the rest of the pattern and see if adding a few stitches here and there would work.

I've also gotten bigger. I have 4 maternity pants and only 2 still fit. I had a pair of shorts and they don't fit anymore either. As for shirts, I have like 3 shirts I can wear, 2 tank tops, and I've been wearing some of Victor's smaller shirts, which actually isn't too bad. Make me feel a bit fat but they're pretty comfortable. I also have a pair of shorts I had pre-pregnancy that still fit, some danskin ones with a drawstring. I've had to retie the drawstring but they're still comfortable!

Morning sickness has returned a little bit. Not a lot. But I did almost throw up the other day and have had a small bit of nausea.

The book I'm currently reading is actually pretty good. It's like a fake biography about Cleopatra, whom I actually had very little knowledge about, but I figured I'd like her story so I purposefully avoided "spoilers". Sounds silly but that's just how I felt. The author loves to make people cry things instead of saying them, but if you overlook that (cause it's really not a big deal) I went through about 300 pages of it in only a day or two. And then I discovered Mario vs Donkey Kong for the 3ds (I think it's dsi ware actually) and have been obsessively playing that. I only have about 5-6 more gold stars before I'm at 100% completion. But I'm back reading it and am nearly 500 pages along now. lol, I actually just picked it up now to see how many pages there where and when I flipped it open to my bookmark I was at exactly 500 pages. Anyway, it's got 749 pages if you count the author's note at the end. Oh, and I say it's pretty good right now cause I haven't looked up any actual history to compare to see how well this guy stuck to that. Like I said, avoiding "spoilers".

I've had hand and foot swelling, mostly feet. I can still get my rings on and off. I take them off when I knead dough cause it's hard to clean them if I don't. There's been once I couldn't get them off and once where I took one look at my hand and went "ha" and just left them.

After we get the corner set up I'll take pictures. It's going to be a sort of green paint and I have a dinosaur wallpaper border I'm going to put up. And I have some Winnie the Pooh cardboard-wood cutout things I found at the thrift store I'm going to hang up. We'll set up the bassinet early next month so the cats have time to get used to it and smell and it and stuff. I don't want to dump too many changes on them all at once. Which I guess makes it a good thing that I'm organizing the house slowly, cause it gives them time to come and sniff at what I've done in small doses.

I got to Rank 6 on the Altador Cup at Neopets. My team came in 9th place. I'm happy with that.

Review: River God

So sometimes at that book sale I see Egypt historical books by Wilber Smith. I wound up buying one, but usually Victor told me not to bother because the author was pretty bad. But I had to give it a try. So I wound up reading River God. On one hand I want to say Victor was right. Don't bother. On the other hand once I overlooked the bad parts I was able to enjoy it. As long as you don't get tired of rolling your eyes it's pretty entertaining. As with a lot of "historical" anything fiction you have to take it with a grain of salt and look up anything you didn't know to see if the author/director was accurate. Apparently this book is filled with so many inaccuracies that I'm going to have to try hard to get these "facts" out of my head so I don't look stupid. One thing I did catch onto on my own pretty easily was the stunning amount of white people. In ancient Egypt? I could understand maybe a slave or two who was captured in a far land and somehow wound up there. But the son of one of the leading nobles who was in the running for grand vizier having red hair and green eyes? He's not alone, however, as there are several of these types running around. I'm not sure exactly which period of time this was in (my grasp of Egyptian history is looser than my grasp of British history, and I already explained how little I actually know in a previous post), but it just doesn't seem right to me. This was before they had chariots (as they encounter chariots for the first time in this book) so I presume it's before Rome so they hadn't really encountered people from the north-west yet I think, and I thought redheads mostly came from various parts of Europe? I could be wrong and I don't feel like looking it up right now.

In addition to the inaccuracies we have the characters. The main character is a total Marty Stu, like, this author could give Harry Potter fanfiction writers a good run for who has the best Marty Stu. Personally I think the HP writers would win because the main character isn't related to anyone important. The secondary characters aren't much better. The lead female is perfect, the secondary male is perfect, characters who show up later are perfect. etc.

It was fun but I won't be looking for the other books by this author. I don't regret reading it. I mainly regret the author's inability to write good characters.

Now I'll move on to the spoiler-ific part of this.

Baby Blanket

Finished the baby blanket! I guess you can use Victor's leg as a scale to see how big it is, lol. I used this pattern.

Close up look at the shells... half-shells I guess really..

Review: Gone

So yesterday I finally finished reading Gone by Jonathon Kellerman. It took me about a month to finish. Looking at the reviews on Amazon I'm not alone in struggling through it. I thought I just had trouble cause detective books aren't really my thing. Or because this was part of a series. Which, I did not know it was part of a series when I got it. Apparently it's towards the later end of the series. And after looking at some of the reviews apparently people seem to think the villain was obvious! lol, really? Course maybe if you read enough mystery books you get good at seeing these things, but as for me I had no clue up till they more or less spelled it out for me.

It follows this psychologist and a lot of random stuff happens in the book that I guess long-time readers of the series would understand, get, and appreciate. But for me it was random and provided nothing for the story. A little personal life stuff is ok, but not when I don't get the significance of it. Not when it seems forced like it only happened cause the author decided he needed to throw in some personal life and didn't really care about it too much. Like it was an after thought. Asides from how careless the personal life bits seemed they did not entice me to want to read the rest of the series. This guy is sleeping with two different women without caring about what he's doing! And apparently these women know each other, and don't care about what's going on; if they don't know they certainly guess, I think. I don't want my hero of the story to be like that.

The writing was annoying with way too much detail. I doubt there's many people who actually think in so much detail as was described. Things like, he'd drive up to a house, immediately recognize the style of architecture, the paint type and shade, the age of the house. Then he'd see things like "the door was open approximately 6"". No one things in terms of distance like that. "Slightly ajar" would have been perfectly acceptable and even expected! Then inside the house he'd immediately recognize the shade of paint or the style of wallpaper on the walls, the style of carpeting, the style of furniture, the knicknacks on the walls and their style and type, and he'd be able to date some of it. With one single one-second glance at the person he's going to talk to he'd instantly know what style and type of clothes and who made them, as well as the type of jewelry they're wearing if any, and what style their hair is in. Wow.

At one point things get rather confusing. He shows up at the murder scene and sees someone he knows. Of course he spends a page and a half discussing with himself the style of clothing and watch his friend is wearing. Then he goes on for another page about a memory he has of said friend. This memory is attached to another memory. So basically we have a memory of him remembering a conversation he'd had.

By the end of the book things pick up and we stop having quite as much of the useless details. They're still there just not as many and not as frequently. Either that or I got used to it.

Also apparently being an adviser on psychology to the police means he gets to ride along and know every tiny detail of the case and work it with the detective? I thought he was only brought in because he had previously had sessions with the person who was murdered! I guess both these things means he gets to play detective. I dunno, maybe that happens in RL. Just seemed kinda odd to me.

The story itself was alright actually. If it were a movie it'd be one of those ones you flick on on the tv or netflix/hulu in the middle of the day when there's nothing else better to do. One of those summer I'm Bored rot your brain movies. But you wouldn't regret seeing it. As a book it kinda fails though.

This one is going back in the donation bin for the used book sale. Unless Victor wants to read it, which I doubt.

Update

This is a little late, but oh well. I had an ultrasound and... it's a boy! We got a clear shot of everything, which was nice, since some people's u/s pics look like tv fuzz. Anyway, it was wonderful to watch. He was active and kept hitting the camera and at one point kicked it, which was adorable and my highlight of the whole thing. And I'm measuring further than the midwife put me at so he moved me up from a due date of the 13th to a due date of the 5th.

I kinda wanted a girl... And now I'm stuck on middle names. We have Thomas for a first name but I have no idea for a middle! Victor wants Allan but I dunno. I'll probably let him have it since I really can't come up with anything better. And a lot of baby names sites have pages upon pages of names from other countries mixed in with the names I consider normal. I mean, I'm sure that these names are normal by that country's standards but they're not normal by mine. Victor had said he wouldn't mind an Italian sounding middle name but I can't find any that are "normal" enough to be acceptable. I don't it want to scream "I'm partially Italian", but a hint of it would do. But like I said I can't find anything good there either. I just need to look harder.

I'm still working on crocheting that blanket I started back in, what, March? Early April? It's getting there. I think I'm finally almost to the point where I can put the border on it and call it done. I realized I only have about 3 more months before it's born. I need to get going on these things! I still want to make a diaper bag (I have fabric I just need to put it together), and any other things. Like I have this really nice baby weight greenish yarn I want to do something with. I want to look at my baby snow suit and winter gear pattern and see what I want to make. I want to look at my boy clothes pattern and make him some cute stuff. I want to do all this stuff that I doubt I'll actually do. I mean I can just buy this stuff but why when making it is fun and you get exactly what you want?

We're starting off late on the garden. Victor's got it all dug up and now he has to get rocks out. I went ahead and started things in planters yesterday. We'll see how that goes and when things start popping up he should have the garden completely ready and I can transplant to the ground.

Let's see... I re-started Manhunt since it's not on the cloud I think (on steam) and I hadn't played in over a year or two anyway. I got stuck on a level and then steam updated the game which broke it for everyone. I managed to fix it by downloading someone's old backup save file and replacing the "updated" version with the old one. I wish Steam would quit forcing updates.

I started playing Morrowind today. So far I'm a little lost and have only played about 15-20 minutes of non-character creation stuff. But I'll get there. It was a little chuggy so I had to turn it down to 800x600. I really don't want to go lower than that so we'll see if I can deal with it.

Altador Cup starts in a few days. I joined Haunted Woods like I said I would. Yay.

I'm still struggling on that book I complained about in my last review. Gone. Ugh, unless it has an absolutely spectacular ending I'm donating it back to the booksale people. Really, I'm not sure what whim made me buy it in the first place. Mystery-detective style books just aren't what I'm into.

I hate all my clothes. All three or four I can actually fit. lol, or at least that's how it feels! I miss my old pants. My tummy has gotten huge and I can't put my knees up to my chin anymore. And, omg, my ribs! Any activity of any sort (getting up off the couch and going upstairs to bed can do it for me...) brings them to a burning, tingling pain. Like someone has a super heated knife stuck under my ribs and another on top of them. Sometimes yawning makes my rib cage feel like it's expanding to the point of popping. Sometimes it gets so bad that bending over creates so much pressure in my chest it feels like it'll explode. If I'm up and on my feet for a long time (like when I cover for Bonnie) it gets to the point where I can't concentrate and I do things like dig my nails into my palms to distract myself. Tylenol helps for about 10 minutes then it's as if I never took it. My next appointment with the midwife is on the 8th and I'll ask her then. Everyone else I talk to says "oh yeah rib pain's normal". lol, even to the extent I'm getting it? Either I'm being a baby or my pain is not normal. There has to be something I can do. According to the ultrasound my baby was in breech position (feet first) which is no big deal at this point cause they can turn multiple times before they have to be head-first. And the head is more to the left. 99% of my pain is on the right. If I felt where the tech positioned the camera correctly the head is facing my left hip kinda. Some people say that rib pain is from baby pushing a foot or head or arm up in there. If that's so and baby is no where near my right ribs... where is the pain coming from!? Is it his butt shoving into them? Either way I hope my ribs go back to normal or I'll never fit a lot of my old shirts again. Presumably. I haven't measured myself yet. Sometimes I wake up from sleeping with rib pain going on. Yet other times I'm out in the yard for a while and it's a half hour or more before they start hurting. My hips also bother me. For a time my left was great cause I accidentally cracked it and had no pain at all. Now it's both, but mainly my right. Which is odd since I've had hip pain on and off for the last several years and it's always in the left. ...it's my right shoulder blade that hurts too, between it and the spine. I do get pain on the left but it's far more common on the right.

Baby's also been active. We can see him moving around, and Victor's felt him a few times. For the most part I really enjoy feeling him and the closeness it creates. Sometimes he's a bit fierce and it can be uncomfortable. Once he woke me up with it. Sometimes he randomly decides he's being squished and kicks me in places that make me run for the bathroom even if I don't have to go. But I love him. I've cuddled my tummy a few times.

In other news, here's some pictures of my cats:

Civ V is awful

So Civilization V was on free-play this weekend. Since I really like Civ IV I gave it a try expecting it to be as wonderful as everyone claims it is. I was horribly disappointed and have no intention of buying it unless it goes on sale for super cheap. Here's why:

Why I will never be AllStar for AC

Cut for length cause it's long and I doubt anyone cares. (which I really don't mind, I just wanted to post about it cause there's no where else to do so)

Pink Lemonade Cake

I made this cake using a recipe I saw in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. It is a pink lemonade cake. I think it came out wonderful!!! The only issue I had was that I had to trim the top half to match the bottom half and when I frostinged it it crumbled some. The only substitution I did was I used pink lemonade concentrate instead of plain because, well, why not? Otherwise I followed the recipe as it was.

The recipe actually wanted you to cut each of those layers in half so you layer it dark, light, dark, light, but I didn't want to press my luck with anything tricky. As it is the middle bowed some when I picked up the layers as they were. It's a tiny bit brown inside cause the edges got a little over cooked. Not so much frosting in the middle because I didn't know how far the frosting would go since I had made it myself and had vastly cut back the original recipe. In fact I cut the original frosting recipe down to 1/4! And I still had leftovers, which actually I wouldn't have had if I'd used them on the middle. But like I said I didn't know how much I'd use.

btw, like my awesome cake stand? I put the cake on a lid from a mixing bowl set I have then set the lid on an upside down plate. lol, it works.

Also, I'm not reposting the recipe here cause the magazine said it was from a cook book and was printed with permission, and since I don't have permission I'm not posting it. But if you get a chance to go to the library or something look up May's issue, it's towards the back. Or I think you can see the recipe if you go to their site and make an account. It says it's free but it wanted my address so I stopped, but I was going to see if it does take you all the way there. Just search pink lemonade cake in their search bar. Cause this cake is really, really good. Victor didn't think it was going to taste good and was skeptical the whole time, but he really likes it now that he's tried it. I am very proud of how it came out and how it looks and how it tastes. This is one of my better cakes.

Review: The Rope Dancer

I finished reading The Rope Dancer by Roberta Gellis the other day. First I'd like to say that I had no idea that rope dancer was an actual term for tight rope walkers! I thought for sure, based on the title, that she'd be, I dunno, dancing with a rope the way some would dance with a scarf. *shrug* I was all set to say the title was misleading but Victor told me it's not.

So asides from that bit of misunderstanding, I thought it was pretty good. My historical reading doesn't normally go back that far. This was set in the 1100s and reminded me just how much history I don't know. I have another book that I think has a basic overall history of England and it's nearly 1,000 pages (or at least it looks that big), so I might take a look at that and see if it is what I think it is and if I wanna read it. I've already started another book but it's not really holding my interest so I'm not opposed to switching books. I believe there were real people mentioned, if I'm remembering correctly some of these people were in that Princess of Thieves movie or whatever with Keria Knightly. But it's been something like 10 years or so since I last saw that movie.

Anyway. This is that book I mentioned I just got recently about the minstrel and the dancer. A lot of the relationships between characters seems to be built on misunderstandings. For example, he doesn't like it that she's ok with killing people. Well during a short fight she's around the corner and has her rope up and catches this guy on horseback and the rope knocks him off. She runs out to slit his throat only to find he's already dead of a broken neck. Well, the main male character comes over and asks what happened and she's all "I got him with my rope and his neck broke!" Her surprise is that the rope killed him. However, he thinks her surprise is that the guy's dead at all and this makes him love her more. The depth to which misunderstandings contribute to how much they like each other indicates to me that if they sat down for a good long talk about inner feelings they might not like each other as much.

The story was good enough, though. The writing was good. The story is more or less that wars are breaking out and they're just doing their thing, trying to survive, and by chance all meet and go around together, then the main male character (who's name is difficult to decide how to pronounce; Telor) finds his old master's dead and they go to attack the people who did it with the help of this Lord. It's pretty good. And unlike the last romance I tried this one balances story and romance pretty well. I mean there is a story and there is a romance and they're interweaved very nicely. You do see action and its nicely done, though mostly just foreplay is shown (no complaints here).

My current book is one of those mysteries I picked up at the last sale. Ugh, apparently it's part of a series and so far is not holding my interest. It's called Gone. About acting students who get killed. I might try it a little longer or I might look into that England book a little closer. My grasp of England's history is very loose and mainly pieced together from various movies. But as I'm so interested in it I might as well learn it, huh?