System Status: February 2016

So after last week’s super uplifting post, everyone in my household contracted some kind of horrible virus that had us all out for the count for several days. E was the last to get it and actually got through it faster than the kids and me, but I think the rest of us are on the mend aside from a lingering cough. This was C’s first real illness and she was justifiably completely miserable the entire time.

In other news, we dropped E’s truck off in the end of January (after his day-after-Christmas accident) thinking it would be a few weeks before we’d get it back, so we loaded up on bus tickets and a very generous neighbor offered to give E a ride in the mornings (and later let E borrow his car on days he drove his motorcycle). All was going fine until the body shop called to let us know that they ended up finding frame damage which increased the total damage from $6000 to $16000.

So we’re getting a new truck.

Otherwise life is, once again, status quo. Still busy (adding new clients!). Still looking for a house (I need to write a post about this…I have theories as to why it’s been so hard for us that I’m sure our realtor would find insightful 🙂 ). We’re going to see one tomorrow that I feel really good about, but I’ve had that feeling before. I think with each house that’s “the one,” but doesn’t really end up that way, I get a little less excited. This is both good and bad as I think it helps me be more realistic, but it also stinks to not have much hope. Still… we really have no other choice but to just keep on looking.

In the end of February I’m into….

Books.

This month, I finished The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon. This was hard for me to get through as the subject matter was not something I’d normally be interested in and I can’t remember where I first heard about it. Overall, it was actually pretty depressing, though not in a deep and thought-provoking way as I’ve found other novels (All the Light We Cannot See specifically comes to mind), but it did keep me guessing until the very end, which I liked.

My next book was Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, which means I can cross the “book that you’ve previously abandoned” goal from the Modern Mrs. Darcy 2016 reading challenge. I tried reading this a few years ago, I think, and just could not get through it. I think part of the problem is that it’s written like a letter (or “begat”) from an older father to his very young son. It’s full of memories and stories from his own life, but also some current struggles he’s going through as well as his thoughts on different things. It’s not particularly linear other than how he deals with his current struggles and I found it difficult to stay interested. The other part of the problem was that the narrator of the audiobook version was an older gentleman with a very calming voice. I usually listen to my books while I’m nursing C to sleep at night, so this made for a lot of nights where I just fell asleep early. 🙂 I definitely prefer Home and Lila to this one (and I also know I’m in the minority!).

I’d like to preface the next one with a quote from CS Lewis….

“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”

I didn’t realize Cinder, by Marissa Meyer, was young adult fiction until I was a few chapters in (quite a few people had recommended it). It’s a little cheesy and very predictable and filled with all the best elements of YA fiction (not-so-fashionable, outcast girl captures the handsome prince’s attention; unfair parental characters; etc.), but it’s a great story. I like how she incorporates different elements of the Cinderella fairy tale into the story (eg. the old car that looks like a giant, rotting pumpkin) so much so that now I’m hooked and am trying to finish off the series. This actually came at the perfect time as it gave me something fun to listen to during the long days of constantly nursing a sick little girl.

I’m thisclose to being done with Scarlett and then I’ll move on to the Cress and finish the series off. I’m also reading Everybody’s Guide to Homeopathic Medicines, and The Divine Hours (Volume Three): Prayers for Springtime: A Manual for Prayer. With B I’m reading Among the Farmyard People (free for Kindle!).

If you’d like to follow along with my book reading adventures, you can find me on Goodreads or check out my Pinterest book board.

TV.

Only one more episode of Downton left! I decided I like my BBC/Masterpiece Monday nights so much that I loaded up on a bunch of them from the library (right now, The Bletchley Circle and The Crimson Field) and plan on watching one each week. We’ll see if I can hold myself back from watching ahead. I think Call the Midwife starts up again in March or April, so there’s that to look forward to as well. 🙂

To our normal weekly episodes of The Middle, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Goldbergs, we’ve added You, Me, and the Apocalypse. It’s quirky and very entertaining.

Movies.

We somehow managed to watch three whole movies this month, which I think is a record for our post-birth-of-babies selves!

Instead of subjecting ourselves to the Super Bowl (we live in Denver but we are definitely not fans of the local team), we sat through Mr. Holmes which was actually quite disappointing. It sort of reminded me of a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle episode of Seinfeld….it was kind of about nothing.

E has been wanting to see Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation since it came out on DVD. It was okay….I don’t recall anything particularly memorable about it (other than that Tom Cruise looks OLD).

And on Valentine’s Day, per our yearly tradition since before we were married, we got pho and sat down for 2.5 hours of James Bond….and it was awful. Really, truly, awful. We had been warned by various friends and online sources, but decided to risk it. It was bad.

Internets.

• Five Things I Wish Christians Knew About Politics. “Despite the constant rhetoric spewed about who is the most ‘Christian,’ ‘Godly,’ and ‘moral,’ the reality is that no candidate or political party has the market cornered on God.Despite testimonials of personal religious experiences, Biblical references, spiritual gestures, prophetic promises, and faith-based posturing, no political entity can entirely represent God. And although many will try to replace God as a source of hope, inspiration, and salvation, thousands of years of history has proven this to be a foolish endeavor. Much of the God-talk is simply an attempt to pander to Christian voters, and commonly enters into the realm of sinful hypocrisy—where soliciting for Christian votes is simultaneously completely void of any of the fruits of the Spirit such as love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.“
• Van Gogh’s Bedroom. The best Airbnb offering ever. Fact.
• Not Ready. “Motherhood isn’t about getting ready. That is, at the same time, the hardest and most freeing thing about it. Motherhood makes you ready as you live it. Fill your life with good friends, encouraging words, lots of prayer, hand-me-downs, more prayer, and for the love of sanity have a good sense of humor—that is about as ready as we can be.”
• The Nightwatch. “But then here it is: hiding in plain sight, an altar. I’m standing sentry and holding vigil for her. It feels like I have become the answer because I have no answers and so I am free to simply show up both during the night for the baby and even as I am now during the day. It feels like a holy act to lift one crying and cold baby up out of her darkness and hold her to my body, to still the cries of at least one soul.”
• How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off. “Hear that, Tiger Moms and Lombardi Dads? You can’t program a child to become creative. Try to engineer a certain kind of success, and the best you’ll get is an ambitious robot. If you want your children to bring original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their passions, not yours.”
• From the top of the proverbial hill. “What if every year we reached new heights and took our last breath at the top of a mountain that we’d spent our entire life conquering, all the while blazing trails for others? Did you know that Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t write her first book until she was 65? Julia Child was 40 when she discovered her passion for cooking. John Wooden, the winningest coach in college basketball history, wrote ten books, many New York Times bestsellers, after the age of 90. Renowned painter Grandma Moses didn’t pick up a brush until the age of 76, and still managed to paint over 1000 paintings in her final 25 years.”
• The Arrogance of Evangelical Evangelism. “The arrogance in this Evangelical approach isn’t just that it allows flawed, failing men to speak exclusively for God (certainly somewhat arrogant in itself), but more so in the way it dispenses drive-by damnation upon the masses; how it claims to know in an instant and from a great distance, the moral condition of another human being, and to pass sentence accordingly.”

Loving.

• Shea Butter. Organic, raw, and unrefined at a fantastic price. I use this straight as a facial moisturizer and body lotion and the kids absolutely love to slather it all over themselves.
• Denver Scramble. I discovered this recipe through one of my clients and everyone in my family thought it was one of the best things they had ever eaten. I’m always glad to find new egg dishes as that’s one of our weekly planned meals and E is pretty picky about them.
• Deodorant Creme. It’s been in the 70s here lately and I’ll try and I tend to sweat a lot in even the mildest weather. I haven’t gotten an order in to Apple Valley Natural Soap in a while, but I found an old container of this stuff in my bathroom drawer and decided to see if it still worked. In short: it’s awesome and I no longer need to make sure I keep my arms at my sides at all times. I need to stock up! I love the original scent, but I’d also like to give some of the new ones she offers a try.

On the Blog.

• My Favorite Books of 2015 (4 books made it to this list with an additional 2 runners-up!)
• MomFriendMatch.com (my weirdness and social awkwardness are a little overwhelming for even me at times! will you be my friend? 🙂 )

Favorite Instagram.

And there you have the state of the Reb. 🙂

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