Get Me Out of Here: a brief review

There are days when you scan your shelves for the next book to tackle and Jane Austen is what you pick up. And then there are days when you just want the satisfaction of crossing something off a list and you pick a super easy book half-filled with pictures because you know you can crank it out quick and move on to something else. The huge bummer of it all is when that's the mood you're in, but right after you start reading your husband goes on midnight shift and your sister comes to visit for three days and your dog breaks his leg and Christmas presents need to be wrapped and suddenly it's Christmas Eve and you're traveling...you see where I'm going with this? I didn't exactly crank this one out quick and move on, but the couple times that I did sit down and read I was able to zoom through about 100 pages at a time, keeping the total amount of time I actually spent reading pretty short. So my theory was spot on, anyway. 

Get Me Out of Here, the second book in James Patterson's Middle School series, is just as cute and entertaining as the first...and maybe even a little bit more so. There were a couple of little things that irritated me about Rafe in the The Worst Years of my Life (the entire plot being centered around him breaking every rule in the school's code of conduct, for one), but those issues aren't here this time around. Either Patterson got some slack from other people and went a different direction, or he wanted to really show how his character had grown between books 1 and 2. Regardless, I like where he's headed with the series a lot.

As of the end of book 1, Rafe has been expelled from his public school but given an incredible opportunity to attend a private art school in town where his talents and creativity will be encouraged and fostered so he doesn't find himself itching to get into trouble again. Everything is perfect, until the diner his mom is a waitress in burns down and they find themselves jobless and homeless and moving to the "big city" to live in Grandma's tiny house. All seems lost until Rafe's mom surprises him with a special scholarship to a similar art school in their new city. Trouble surfaces once again, though, when he has a hard time making new friends in this cutthroat, hypercritical environment.

I still think the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are slightly more funny and witty, but I can see a big improvement from the first book to the second in this series. Rafe is more loveable, his antics are more tasteful, and the interactions between middle schoolers is more realistic. Both good and painful lesson learned in this one, and I found it all to be pretty believable. There's even a surprise-ish ending you don't necessarily see coming like last time, but unlike last time I wasn't super conflicted in my feelings about it. Overall, I liked it a lot. It was indeed a super quick read, and I'm excited to read the others at some point soon.

Goals and Such

Well, it's happened. Christmas is over and I'm already jumping ahead to the new year and the various personal goals I have as we move forward. I've always been a little skeptical of New Year's resolutions...and I've always been pretty terrible with keeping them when I've attempted to make them myself. That's why this is not a post about New Year's resolutions. It's a post about my goals for 2014. The things I would love to change about myself and/or learn how to do; the ways I want to use this new year for personal growth and crossing stuff off my lists. I know that sounds like New Year's resolutions...but it's not. Just take my word for it.

My goals for this year are many, and they cover many different arenas of my life. Because of that, some of them are more personal than others, but I'll do my best to be as transparent as possible.

Reading Goals:

• I have thought long and hard about this one. I love my little countdown of the 94 (now knocked down to 81) books that I've owned but haven't read, and I want to continue that. But I also want to make sure I allow myself the privilege of reading new books too. I've also struggled to find a number of books to shoot for that is both a challenge and realistic. And since I don't really have a concept of how many books that would be for me (I tend to read in spurts, making it hard to know how much I'm capable of reading if I do it consistently), I'm shooting for 40 books total, 20 off my list of books I already own and 20 new books. 
• This is a silly one, but since I'm relatively new in town, I want to get a library card from my local library. It's kind of a no-brainer way to read the new books I want to read while restraining from buying all of them outright. I'm guessing that's why libraries were invented, after all.
• Related to the previous goal, I want to get my Kindle set up with the local library system as well. I do love my Kindle - and miss using it with all this reading of paper books I already own - and want to take advantage of that system that is, once again, free.

Personal Goals:

• Figure out an exercise routine and stick with it. This is a little self-explanatory, but the goal is that I actually follow-through. Whether this is the year we are able to start a family or not, I want to make exercise a consistent, long term part of my life. I've had seasons of my life where that's been the case, but I want it to stick. Honestly, I need it to stick. It's about time. 
• Figure out a quiet time routine and stick with it. Also self-explanatory, but a little bit of that transparency I was talking about. Just like my struggles with inconsistency in my exercise routine, I have struggled with keeping a consistent time in the Word for a long time. I've done them in the mornings, in the middle of the day, and at night, but I'm currently living without a dedicated time, place, and plan. I need all of those things, and I need it to be permanent. I need it to be just as much a part of my day as eating. I'm willing to experiment with different times, places, and plans, but the point is that I need to stop winging it and make it a priority. 
• Finish the book. That's right, everyone. I've been withholding a pretty big secret: I've been writing a novel - based on a friendship I had growing up - and now that what I've written so far has been given as a Christmas present I feel like I can talk freely about it. I meant to finish it before Christmas but it just didn't happen, so I want to finish it as soon as I can so I can start the editing/revising process. I'm sure that will stink. Maybe something will end up happening with it and maybe nothing will and that's not on my goal radar as of right now....right now I just want to finish it. 
• Since we moved to Berryville, we've spent our fair share of church hunting in between the hubs having to work alternating second and third shifts (including an awful lot of weekends), and right when we found one we truly love and that we think we want to be our home, those pesky alternating work schedules started up again and we haven't been able to go back. This year, though, since the work schedules should be back to normal for quite a while, I want us to have dinner with the church's pastor so we can get our questions answered and know for sure whether we want this church to be our new church family. 
• If this church is the one, I want us to join a Bible study together. We miss our Woodbridge couple's study so very much, and all the friends we felt like we were just starting to make because of it. We still miss them, but we're excited to finally feel like we have friends and community here in our new town. 
• Time with friends is so important, and even though this introvert loves her time at home, I very much cherish time investing in the relationships and friendships God has blessed me with. I would love to have lunch and coffee dates every week with friends, but that just takes way too big a hit on our budget, so instead I want to maintain at least one out-of-town friend date a month. Obviously there will be months where there will be more, but I want to make sure I'm seeking out the friends that mean so much to me that live a little bit farther away from me now since we've moved. 
• This may seem like a random one, but I want to learn the basics of how to sew. It's something I don't feel comfortable doing - and haven't done at all other than seventh grade Home Ec class - and I feel like between pillows and curtains it would be an easy way to save money around the house.

There are more things that I want to accomplish this year, obviously, but these are the things that I want to be intentional and vigilant about. I'll keep up with my list throughout the year in the sidebar, for your tracking and viewing pleasure. 

2014, guys. Kind of sounds weird, doesn't it? 

Stargirl: a brief review

Stargirl is one of those books that's just always been there. It's always been in the library, and it's always been in all the YA sections of stores. Jerry Spinelli is a big deal, and Stargirl has always been a big deal. That's probably why I bought it at some point, and it has been sitting on my shelf ever since.

When I started diving into it, I honestly had no idea why it was such a staple of YA sections of stores. It's a little weird, to be just brutally honest. I put it aside and read a page or two at a time over the next couple weeks, and worked on some other projects instead. I saw it yesterday though, just sitting on my nightstand, and I decided I needed to power through and finish it so I could just be done with it and move on to the next book. I ended up finishing it that same night, and truthfully...it gets a lot better. I'm still not sure I'm as in love with it as your typical Barnes & Noble would suggest I should be, but I'm definitely glad I read it.

Leo is a high school student in Arizona where everyone is exactly the same. The same clothes, the same hair, the same level of apathy. (It's not some weird dystopian novel where they're literally robots or anything, it's just an exaggerated conversation about how all high schoolers think they need to be the same...just in case I made that unclear.) But then a new student shows up and is the complete and total opposite of everything that Leo's classmates have always been. She dresses in ridiculous hand made costumes. She has a pet rat that she carries around in her purse all the time. She carries a ukelele with her, too, and sings to people in the cafeteria on their birthdays. She's loud and doesn't have a care in the world about anything that might be considered "normal." I don't want to spoil the plot, so I'll just say that a lot happens - both positive and negative - all because of this girl who has named herself Stargirl. Leo has kind of a front seat to everything, and develops a unique relationship with her throughout the book.

I said that at first I didn't like the book. That's mostly because Stargirl is a complete whack-a-do. She is so over the top with her counter-cultural antics and wardrobe that it made me a little uncomfortable to read. And that's not because I identified with the popular kids in this story; I was not the most normal of high school kids. She's just too much, similar to how her classmates' reactions were too much. Too cruel, too mean. At first that was really annoying to me because I wanted a genuine and authentic look at popularity and what being "cool" requires of high school kids and I didn't feel like this was it. But after finishing it, and seeing how it all tied up in the end...I think I've changed my mind. I think Spinelli did it on purpose, making everything the exaggerated version of what's real. With it all said and done, I still had issues with the believability of some of it (how could an entire school population go from completely hating a girl to completely idolizing a girl to completely hating her again...all within the same calendar year and all with total unity?), I also felt a bond with the characters as I closed the last page. I felt like I got them a little bit more than I had throughout the rest of the book. Stargirl wasn't quite as whack-a-do, Leo wasn't quite as clueless, and the rest of the student body wasn't quite as heartless. It's (very) possible that my change of opinion about all of these characters was influenced by the fact that I was coming off of a week-long binge of Freaks and Geeks on Netflix at the time...but regardless, I think I get it. Different is frowned upon in high school. Different is frowned upon in all of life. And even though Stargirl seems to look at this issue at its extreme, it brings up some great points along the way. There's a sequel, and I plan on looking it up sometime.

Timing is Everything

Two years ago today, I went to a Christmas party hosted by some of my friends. It was freezing cold outside and I was warm and lazy in my apartment and my introverted self really didn't want to go. I  did, though, and ended up spending most of the night in a large circle of people talking and hanging out. There was a guy there who was nice and funny and easy to talk to. We chatted about football (my Pack was actually kicking butt that year), and he teased me when I exchanged my four inch heels for  Uggs at the end of the night. He called me the next night and I got so nervous I let him go to voicemail. Like a chicken, I texted him the next night, and we set up a date for the end of the week. I wasn't really all that sure about it, but I decided to give it (him) a try. What could happen?

Seven months later, I married that man.

When the stars line up, and you catch a good break
And people think you're lucky, but you know it's grace
It can happen so fast, or a little bit late
Timing is everything

I didn't want to go the party that night.  Hubs wasn't even technically invited to the party; he asked his friend who he never hung out with on the weekends if he had any plans, and that friend invited him. He didn't have to call me, and I didn't have to say yes. I didn't have to have the courage to ask him some hard questions on date #1, and he didn't have to answer me with the level of honesty and transparency that he did. A lot of things could have gone differently two years ago, and we might still be complete strangers living across town from each other, going to the same church and sharing a lot of mutual friends. Maybe we would have gotten together a different time, and we still would have ended up spending our lives together. There's no way of knowing what would or wouldn't have happened if something had been different two years ago...but I'm in love with that did happen.

I could have been another minute late, 
And you never would have crossed my path that day
When it seems true love is hard to find, 
That's when love comes along, just in time

December 10, 2011

January 1, 2012

May 2012

July 21, 2012

July 2012 (honeymoon)

July 2013

October 2013

You can call it fate, or destiny
Sometimes it really feels like it's a mystery
It can happen so fast
Or a little bit late
Timing is everything

Gift Wrap Crafting

I've seen some cool examples of creative gift wrapping on Pinterest here lately, and I decided today to give it a shot. Quite a bit of snow on the ground, a husband sleeping in the house because he's on the midnight shift, and a dog who was spending the day at the vet for the second time in a week because of his broken leg...why not make my presents for people pretty?

Step one was to scrounge for pretty and useful items throughout the house. First I grabbed my brown card stock, second I went through my scrapbook paper and found red and green varieties, and third I said "ah!" and grabbed the new pack of a couple hundred coffee filters that I have in my pantry that I have no more use for (when my coffee pot died, I bought one with that fancy built-in coffee filter). Step two was to find things I could trace for consistent templates. All things gathered, these were the things I used:

• coffee filters
• card stock
• scrapbook paper
• pencil
• sharpie
• Elmer's glue
• scissors
• large bowl (used the bottom to trace the bigger circles)
• large can of chicken (used to trace the smaller circles)
• rectangular ring box (used to trace the name tags)

  
First, I traced and cut out all the name tags I needed. I kept these consistent and made them all the ring box's shape and all in the card stock. I set them aside when I was done.

 
The next couple steps don't have a lot of pictures. I used three different scrapbook papers that were either red or green in pattern. You can see them in the picture with everything I used, but one was a red base with small green polka dots, one was a red plaid, and one was a green base with different shades of green stripes. I used the different size circle templates to create different color and pattern combinations, and finished every combination off with a coffee filter on the outside. Here, it's easier to show you than to describe it:

 
I didn't tackle hubs' gifts today, so I only made six different name tags and it was easy enough to come up with a different color and pattern combination for each one. I really love how they turned out, and they definitely add a lot of bling to the gifts (which are wrapped and under my tree but will not be shared on here due to the fact that every person whose name tag is featured here reads my blog. You can wait, family.). I do have a couple things (one practical and one aesthetic) I would do differently - and will do differently when I wrap hubs' presents: the coffee filters are pretty and cool and I love finding a use for a couple of them since I have so many, but they're quite huge. If every present was in a decent sized square box, that wouldn't be so bad, but some of the gifts I wrapped today are a little awkward with such jumbo name tags hanging off all sides. I also would definitely use something smaller than the ring box to make the name plate itself. I love that it's a rectangular shape in contrast to all the circles, but it's just too big. Too big for the name, and too big for the circle sizes I used. I do love the card stock's color, though, and will definitely use it again to give contrast against the patterned scrapbook paper (ditto the coffee filters). 

The design might need some tweaking, but I really like that I broke outside of a rut and tried something different and pretty this year with present wrapping. Normally I use fun, stock wrapping paper and write the name of the person it's for on the outside with a Sharpie. Not bad, gets the job done, but a little boring. And even though it's a present and whatever wraps it will be destroyed in just a couple weeks (ah! a couple weeks!), I love putting thought and sentiment into the gifts themselves, and I like the idea of doing that with the wrapping as well. This year it's plain silver wrapping paper or plain gold wrapping paper, and these name tags. Thanks for yet another craft inspiration, Pinterest.