April 14, 2008

I just finished reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. I enjoyed it, although I can see how not everyone would. It's the story of the family and friends of a murder victim, told from the victim's point of view as she watches from heaven. The point of the story is how the family and even the victim ultimately learn to move past the crime.

At times while I was reading, the thought of the victim's rape and murder made me angry, especially when you realize the man who did it had other victims and continued to get away with the crimes. However, I think by the end of the book, it became clear that one message the author wanted readers to hear in this story was that you can't continue to focus all your energy on the criminal, you have to let go in order to live your life.

I would recommend this book, and to people worried about any graphic descriptions of the crime, there is really only a brief description, and it's not as graphic as I was afraid it would be.

April 7, 2008

Well, I've just spent the entire weekend getting absolutely nothing done. I still have books to get on the shelves, a sink full of dirty dishes, laundry to do, and just general housecleaning stuff that really needs to be done. Instead, I spent most of today in bed, reading. Over the weekend, I read three Mrs. Pollifax novels, plus a Lord Peter Wimsey that I think I read at some point, ages ago, but didn't remember the details and didn't own it, so that's okay.

I started The Lovely Bones, but only got a couple of pages into it. I made the mistake of stopping at Half Price Books on Thursday on my way home, and I have a (smallish) pile of mysteries to read now. Since I have no willpower and know I'll like them, I'll probably end up finishing them before getting back to The Lovely Bones. I'm going to keep track of how many books I read this year, although I haven't set a goal for a certain number. I'm not going book shopping again for a while, though - I need to get through my stack of books I haven't read yet first. I may set some goals re: reading more classics or something like that, but right now, I want to read what I've got on hand.

As far as tracking what I've read, here's a list:

Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett (started in Dec. ’07)
Thunderstruck – Erik Larson
Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist – Dorothy Gilman
Mrs. Pollifax Three Complete Mysteries: A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax; Mrs. Pollifax on Safari; Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station - Dorothy Gilman
Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy Sayers

I'll update my What I'm Reading Now list in a minute with the next three or four I plan to get to.

Also, I've found this great site - librarything.com - that lets you catalog your books (200 for free, but I'm going to have to join because that's just not enough) and also has message boards and some really neat statistical toys about what people have in their library. I've already spent a fair amount of time lurking there, now I just need to get the nerve to join in.

Anyway, I think that's all for right now.

I have bookcases!

Finally, I got around to getting someone to build bookcases in my front room like I've wanted since I moved in three years ago. They look really cool. They've only been finished since yesterday, so I haven't put any books on them yet (I want to let the paint get good and dry), but still - I HAVE BOOKCASES! I'm so ready to have my books spread out on shelves where I can see them and pick them up and reread bits of them. And maybe I won't accidentally buy multiple copies of things when I can actually see what I have.

Now to find a comfy chair to go in there, and maybe a lamp. Oh, and this means I have to move the Christmas tree. It's folded up in the box, but I haven't had anywhere to put the box, so it's just been sitting there in that room.

Oh, and I just finished reading Pillars of the Earth over the weekend. I really liked it. I've always been fascinated by cathedrals since we did a unit on them back in Heritage 22 (a freshman history seminar that was required for all students at Austin College). At that point, I decided my ideal house would be built like a cathedral, somewhere in East Texas. Since then, I've learned about electric bills and decided maybe a cathedral would be too expensive to heat and more importantly to cool in the summer, but I still love the look of them, the symmetry and the huge open spaces. Anyway, I like that the book talked about building cathedrals, and I loved how he connected three generations of families and tied them all together in a way I never would have dreamed of. And I like that the bad guys do get their comeuppance, but not in a way you could have easily predicted from the beginning.

Anyway, I have a fairly early day at work tomorrow, and I'm going to be busy all week, since we'll be captioning March Madness games Thursday through Sunday, so I think I'll try to get some sleep.

From Feb. 15 - re-posting

Okay, so the whole getting healthier thing - not going so well. I don't know why I can't seem to set my mind to it. I'm sort of trying, but then sabotaging myself too. Plus, right now I have some kind of cold/allergy/sinus crud, so I really don't feel so good. I finally rejoined the gym Monday and Tuesday I started feeling bad, so I haven't even been to work out yet.

My last doctor's appointment went well, they said everything was all clear, chest x-ray (just an annual one to have on file, not for any particular reason) looked good, CA-125 was 2.3, so well within the normal range which is up to 35. Then, the next day, the nurse calls. "Don't worry about it, but there's something on the x-ray, may not be anything, may just be the machine, but when you come back in three months, do another one." Okay, any nurses or doctors who stumble across this - DON'T DO THAT!! If the only thing you're going to do is wait three months and do it again, instead of letting me worry for three months, wait until I show up for the appointment and say, We were looking at your x-ray and there's something we want to take another look at - go downstairs and do another one for us, please. Then, two weeks later, on a Friday afternoon around 5:00, I look at my cell phone and realize I've missed a call from the doctor's office. Too late to call them back then, and they didn't leave a message. So I spend that weekend worrying that something else is wrong and waiting for Monday. They finally call back Monday, and it's just to say that my pap test was normal. Really, you couldn't just leave a message? And if you couldn't leave a message, did you have to call on a Friday? Just wait until Monday. That way, even if I missed the call Monday, I'd only be worried for one night, because believe me, I'd make sure I was near the phone all day Tuesday, and probably calling you if I hadn't heard anything by noon or so.

So, anyway, that's my medical related stress lately. Then, to top it off, my cat, Samantha, goes missing about two weeks ago. I kept thinking she'd just come back, like she did once before, but after a week, that started looking less likely. Then today, as I'm leaving the neighborhood to go run some errands before work, I notice an animal control vehicle coming into the neighborhood, a police car right outside the neighborhood, three more police cars in the park next to the neighborhood, and what might have been another animal control truck heading down the walking path that runs through the park right behind the neighborhood. I don't know what they're after, but I think it really doesn't look good for Samantha, if there's something that needs that much manpower to get it. I so want to know what the heck's going on, but I have no idea how to find out.

New Year's resolutions

I hate the thought of New Year's resolutions. I never seem to keep them if I make them. However, there are definitely things I need to change in my life, and I plan to change at least some of them.

Mostly, I plan to get healthier. I sometimes worry that I may have waited too late, a very depressing thought since I'm only 32, but I have to quit worrying about that and just get back on track eating better and exercising. If I start now, by the end of the year, I can have easily lost 50 pounds. That's a completely realistic goal, and a pound a week shouldn't be that hard to do. I'll try to post my progress as I go.

Also, I'd like to try to relax a little more. I'm always worried about being places on time (which means 15 minutes early) and I work a lot, although I have stopped doing as much overtime as I used to. I know I can be a little bit uptight about things, and sometimes that's not a bad thing, but I do tend to take it to extremes sometimes. Some things I'm just not going to be able to relax and forget about, but I think I do need to have some time to just not worry about what other people think.

Finally, just as a point of reference re: the weight loss stuff, this is a pic of me a few weeks ago. It's not the greatest, but it'll do until I find a better one, which may not happen until I've lost 15 pounds or so.

I realized I haven't updated in a while. I think I'm not cut out to do a blog, but fortunately, there aren't huge numbers of people reading this and waiting for updates.

I went to the doctor last Monday, and everything's fine. My CA-125 is something less than 2, and so low they can't calculate the exact number. That's really good, since anything under 35 is considered normal. I go back in three months, so now I have a couple of months of not worrying. Hopefully. Although, I still get a little paranoid about any new little aches and pains.

I've really got to get back to Weight Watchers. My clothes are starting to not fit, and that's including even the largest in the range of sizes I have in the closet. It's really depressing, and I refuse to buy any bigger clothes. I'm just not going to. So I guess I either lose weight or I'm going to running around in a bathrobe all the time. I don't think that would go over real well at work.

Anyway, I guess that's all for now.

I just got home from work and thought I'd take a minute to post. I go back to the doctor in just over a week, on the 22nd, and I'm getting nervous. I don't know why. As far as I know, there's no reason to be. They'll do a CA-125 test, which hopefully will be normal, and then the dr will do my exam, and hopefully that will be normal. No big deal. No reason to think it won't be normal. And yet, I'm worried.

Other than that, life is good right now. I'm going to be doing something a little different at work, and while it will be more boring sometimes, it'll mean getting weekends off, and most of the time I'll be off work earlier than I am now.

Anyway, I don't really have a lot to say right now, so I guess that's it.