Fall Into Reading 2012

After a long, hot, and very humid summer this year, I am so looking forward to jeans, hoodies, sneakers, and hot cocoa.  Of course, living in the desert, there is a chance I won't be experiencing actual fall weather until November.  Frustrating as hell!  One thing I can jump right in on is Katrina's Fall Into Reading.  My heart smiles knowing that this post is scheduled and waiting.  It's like my ribbon cutting on Autumn.  I can honestly say that Katrina's Spring Reading Thing reawakened my love for reading (after it lay dormant following the untimely death of my Beloved husband), and I spent a good portion of those dreadful humid days curled up with my nook.  I read 14 books and that is unheard of!

Here is my list of what I intend to read this season, but you know me, I'm always changing it up.

As the next installment of the Crossfire Series hits early October, I'll be rereading Bared to You before diving into Reflected in You by Sylvia Day.

Creed is one of my all-time favorite rock bands!  I have crushed on lead singer Scott Stapp since I first laid eyes on him. I can't wait to read his memoir, Sinner's Creed.

It has been 4 years since I first picked up Twilight.  I remember becoming completely addicted and thinking that I just needed them fed intravenously to me at one point.  I have decided to reread The Twilight Saga for the upcoming release of Breaking Dawn II.  I'm more interested in what my take on them will be now, all these years later, and whether or not I still feel as passionately about them.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyers
New Moon by Stephenie Meyers
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyers
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyers
Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyers

Avoiding Responsibility by K.A. Linde

Futures and Frosting by Tara Sivec

I thought I might be willing to give the books a try after watching The Hunger Games with my oldest.  If I have time, I'll pick up the trilogy.

As always, I'm looking forward to reading all of your lists to get ideas of what's trending right now.

Peyton Goes to Kindergarten

I had no idea how hard today was going to hit me. I woke up this morning crying harder than I've cried in a very long time. Back to School day tends to hit me pretty hard. Is it because Mike was a teacher and we've started a new school year without him again? Or is it that today our baby girl started school without her Daddy? Another milestone without him.

This year I have a kid at all 3 campuses. I'll be playing around with drop off and pick up times for the next few weeks. We set out and dropped Cameron off first at Mojave River Campus (MRC). Off to Corwin Campus (CC) we go, and I walked Dylan in, taking a pic of him before Peyton and I made our way over to Thunderbird Campus (TBC). I grabbed a few shots of Peyton before we headed into the class.

How blessed am I to have Ms. Cambridge in my life? She was Dylan's Kindergarten teacher, and fellow widow. Try as I might, the tears never stopped, and my eyes flooded more as she read The Kissing Hand to the class. I left my daughter at school and came straight home.

Home, hasn't really felt like a home since Mike died. It's more like a house, shelter, if you will. A home is a place where you feel happy, love, and I'm not saying there aren't times I still feel that, but mostly, I look at it as my sanctuary. A place to run and hide and block out the pain. Today, it feels different. I don't have a husband who will come home and care whether I cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed the carpet, or prepped an amazing dinner. The kids don't care if I'm making a feast or chicken nuggets with macaroni and cheese. Today, for the first time since Mike died, I feel completely, and utterly alone.

I know what some of you would say, "Pick yourself up." I don't want to. Today, I want to feel the pain. I want to embrace it. I want to eat my emotions (I'm well on my way) and look around my house, remembering when it was a home.

Spring Reading Thing 2012 Wrap-Up

Whew! I did it! I actually devoted time to reading this Spring. I posted 4 books that I hoped to read during the challenge, yet I only read one of them. Surprisingly enough, that one book completely broke down my wall. As I previously said, Two Kisses for Maddy had been on my shelf since my husband died. I just couldn't bring myself to open it. I didn't want to read about pain that would ultimately bring my pain to the surface. Instead, it was very healing to read Matt's story, because it was a love story to his beautiful wife, taken from him all too soon.

I went looking for a quick read one day when I noticed that Claudia Gray had released another Evernight book, Balthazar. I wasn't aware of this and instantly purchased it on my nook and dove right in. After that, my original goals fell away, and I just read whatever jumped out at me.

My friends and facebook were all abuzz about The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. I was in the salon getting my nails done, when fellow book lover, the owner's sister, asked me if I had read them. I said I hadn't but heard about them. I hadn't given it another thought until another post on facebook mentioned Christian Grey. I downloaded book 1 and began reading it on May 26th. Good grief, it was hard to put down that night, not going to bed until 1 a.m. I finished book 1 and went straight to download book 2, and read well into the night again the second night. Needless to say, I finished book 3 on Memorial Day, May 28. All 3 books, and it was BLISSFUL! I was unsure what to expect with the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, but I fell in love instantly. The erotic tale of Christian and Ana was delightfully sinful. Granted, much like Stephenie Meyer with Twilight, E.L. James used the same descriptive words, and it drove me crazy! Once I got around her less than extensive vocabulary, I adored the story unfolding before my eyes, just as much as I did when I read the Twilight Saga. I was shocked, to say the least, when I found that the stories were originally written for a Twilight fiction site, but made perfect sense to me. I enjoyed these ones so much, that upon going back and telling my book lover friend to read them, I reread them the following week, while she dived in and had a great time teasing each other on facebook about becoming Greysessed and posting pics of who we thought would make the perfect Christian Grey in the movie.

I thought I had done a decent job, I read over my quota for Spring, plugged in my links on this post, and called it done. Ha! A week later I received an email from Barnes & Noble, if you liked the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, check out Bared to You. I downloaded and finished it the next day.

I kept seeing another book recommendation hitting my inbox, B&N, amazon, when I logged in, Beautiful Disaster. I headed over to goodreads to check it out, and was surprised by the reviews. I downloaded, and as you guessed it, read it in a day. Another book I couldn't bring myself to put down. On the same list I found Beautiful Disaster, I found Thoughtless and Effortless, and picked them up too. I love finding cheap reads for my nook.

I think what took me by surprise was the Thoughtless series (and I can't wait to see what adventure book 3 holds in store for Kellan and Kiera). I completely misjudged the book by it's cover, and found myself laughing, angry, gasping, covering my mouth, as well as bawling my eyes out. You know it's a good book when all your emotions are brought to the surface. Guess what? Effortless was all that and more. The sequel was far more enticing than the original. I have never read a sequel to a book that I adored more than the first one, and yet, Effortless was just that. I became completely engrossed and adored S.C. Stephens writing. A complete and utter surprise, and hands down my favorite read during this challenge.

Thank you Katrina for hosting another great Spring Reading Thing! I'm looking forward to catching up on some much needed sleep, now that I'm not completely captivated by these books. I'll see you in the Fall. :)

Two Kisses for Maddy by Matt Logelin

Balthazar: An Evernight Novel by Claudia Gray

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James

Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James

Bared to You by Sylvia Day

A Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens

Effortless by S.C. Stephens

Basket of Blessings

I know I have mentioned over the last 15 months just how abundantly blessed I am, but I truly am! This afternoon a basket of blessings was delivered (anonymously) to my house. Words will never express the gratitude I feel for the outpouring of love shown to my children and myself this last year.

Amending a Record

When Peyton's social security card came in the mail, several weeks after she was born, her name was misspelled. I was devastated. What made this worse was when I called, they said it must have been a clerk error, and she would forever have a 2 page birth certificate to correct the spelling. I ordered the paperwork to amend her birth certificate in Fall 2010, knowing I needed her name fixed before she started preschool. I never filled them out because Grandma died, and then Mike, Peyton never attended preschool...and well, I forgot. Until it dawned on me, she's starting Kindergarten in August!

Vital Records tell me it takes up to 4 months for the record to be amended. We're right at the cutoff of Kindergarten starting. I filled out the paperwork, called the hospital for document verification that they were wrong, when I was told she would have to pull that file and make sure I didn't make the error. Okay. Well, if everything I have from the hospital shows her spelling as PEYTON, not PAYTON, and as I am not the clerk entering in her information, I am fairly certain the hospital made the mistake. Insult to injury, it will cost me $20 to fix this, and my daughter will have a 2 page birth certificate for the rest of her life. But go ahead, pull your file.

When she called back, she sure changed her tune and said, "I see here that you filled out all paperwork as PEYTON, is this correct?" Yep. She then informed me that because it is a hospital error, they fill out the paperwork and pay for the amended record. All I need to do is get a sworn statement notarized stating that I am her mother and run it by the hospital. Woot! Woot!

New Easter Tradition

Honestly, I was just grateful to get through Easter last year. The first major holiday after Mike's death. We did nothing unusual, and I even made the same Easter dinner I had for the last 11 years.

This year, however, I wanted to do something different, something we haven't done. I read the Bible, but I have never read it my kids. I found a list of verses, broken up by subject (i.e. The Last Supper, Jesus Arrested, Jesus Has Risen, etc) and decided to read three subject areas a night before bed, equaling about thirty minutes of reading time. If this worked, I could see this becoming a new Easter (and Christmas) Tradition.

The first night, the kids grumbled. The second night, they grumbled, but didn't fidget. The third night, they sat down excitedly to hear how the story would unfold. The fourth night, they interrupted with questions and genuine concern. Tonight, Cameron, who rolled his eyes at me the first night, said, "After Easter can we continue this every night?" YES! Yes. We. Can.

My intention was to teach my children the true reason we celebrate Easter, but as each night passed, my intention changed and I wanted to read stories from the Bible every night, as a family, before we say our prayers for bed.

I am blessed!

Spring Break

Isn't this what Spring Break is all about anyway?