Reading Roundup: February 2011

Matched by Ally Condie

I'd been hearing a lot about this book, and I admit to feeling a little bit disappointed that it wasn't quite as good as the hype. The plot and many elements of the setting felt like they were derived from other dystopian fiction. But, I still really liked the characters and I do look forward to reading the sequel.

The Cure for Money Madness by Spencer Sherman

I did already comment on this book here in this post. It was a quick read and I skimmed some parts of it. It wasn't the best-written book but still had some good insights. I feel like I learned a lot from it and will be thinking about many of my new insights for a long time.

Counting Stars by Michele Paige Holmes

I read a book by Holmes last year after it was nominated for the Whitney Awards and the plot intrigued me. I also read this one because the plot also sounded interesting to me; the plot certainly had many twists and turns that kept me reading. I'm not usually a big romance fan but this one wasn't too bad.

The Optimistic Child by Martin E. Seligman

I read this book a few years ago and decided it was time for a re-read. I enjoy books like this one that have concrete, practical tips for things to do with your children. The cognitive thinking skills in this book are geared towards kids that are a bit older than mine, but I'll be keeping them in mind for the future.

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

I really liked The Joy Luck Club and it's one of my favorite books, but the problem is that every one of her other books have not measured up. This one had a compelling plot, but the characters were all so annoying that I had a hard time reading this.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

I really didn't need the author to tell me which books and movies were her 'inspiration'; this book felt horribly derivative to me. I mostly finished it because I was curious about how the plot would resolve itself. The ending wasn't much of a shock either, plus it was one of those books where the entire action hinges on a few little things left unsaid by people. I hate stories like that--they frustrate me.

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asberger's by John Elder Robison

This book was much more interesting and entertaining than I thought it would be. I checked it out hoping to have some insight into Asberger's syndrome, but mostly I thought it was a fascinating memoir about a singular person.

Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

When someone recommended this book to me I was hesitant to read it. Partly because I had already read one of her books, and also because I wasn't sure about labelling either of my children as 'spirited'. After reading the book I changed my mind; there were many good, practical tips for working with your kids that I'm already putting into practice with my kids. Even if you don't think your kids are 'spirited' you could benefit from reading this book (or her other one: Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles).

Movies

Catfish

Everything I've read about this movie warns that the plot has unexpected twists that shouldn't be revealed. I think that if you want to watch the movie, you should keep that in mind. This was a fascinating documentary about many aspects of our contemporary culture. Watch it and you won't be disappointed.

Temple Grandin

This is my new 'must recommend to everyone movie'. Claire Daines does an amazing job in her role and the way the movie presents her point of view is innovative and moving. Both Mr. Fob and I agreed that it was the best movie we've seen in a long time.

The Kids are All Right

Although Annette Bening received more of the praise for this movie, both of us felt like Julianne Moore's performance was better. She had a much more complicated character to deal with and she did a good job. This was generally a good movie, but I felt like many aspects of the story were incomplete and I wanted to know more.

The Letters S & T

It's been a long time since we did these countries so hopefully I can remember everything!

South Africa: We read books about the country; the kids especially liked this one and this one. For dinner we had bobotie and geelrys; they were a big hit with everyone

Spain: Mr. Fob and I both served missions in Spain so we already know quite a bit about the country. I supplemented the books we read with some stories and information that I already knew about the country. We had a simple dinner of tortilla espanola with a salad and bread and we had rice pudding for dessert.

Sweden: We found some great books for this country, including this one and this one. For dinner we had meatballs (of course) with potatoes and lingonberries. They were delicious.

Switzerland: The kids thought Switzerland sounded like a fascinating place, especially the fact that people speak so many languages. I bought some fancy cheese to make authentic fondue for dinner, and sadly they thought it was too strong and didn't like it. They were much bigger fans of the chocolate fondue we had for a treat. I thought about watching a movie version of Heidi, but the ones I found were too long for my kids' taste so we settled for a picture book version instead.

Tahiti: I had a really hard time finding any picture books about Tahiti or any of the Pacific Islands. I thought that was kind of weird. We did borrow a CD of Tahitian music from my sister-in-law and the kids really liked it. They also liked the coconut shrimp we had with rice for dinner.

Thailand: The kids were particularly interested in Thailand because they have an uncle from there; we had my niece with us for a sleepover so I guess this was one of the few times we actually had someone authentic "from" a particular country to share our dinner. This was also the week I felt burned out and decided to get Thai takeout from the restaurant down the street. It was delicious. For some cute books about Thailand you can read this one or this one.

Turkey: This was another country that was fascinating to the kids; they liked the fact that it is on two continents. S-Boogie also really liked the story of The Hungry Coat and had me read it with her several times. I felt like cooking this week so we had kofte, potato salad, cucumber-tomato salad, and homemade pita bread. The adults thought it was a great meal, but the kids were not as impressed.

This is becoming a bad habit

I'm afraid that my blog is rapidly devolving into irregular updates that focus on my apologies for not regularly blogging. I've been in a funk for the last few months that I can't seem to shake. One of the hardest things about my job is that, while it works in well with my family life, it leaves me with little real free time. And I've been spending too much of my free time doing unfocused things that are just a way to avoid my work. I need to do a better job at just living my life and doing what needs to be done.

I have a lot of good posts in my head and I just have not been taking the time to write that down. Maybe that will be one of my goals next month. I have an idea that it might help me with a lot of things in my life. I'm also trying to decide whether I want to keep teaching next year or not. For this whole year I've had mixed feelings about my job, but I've also invested a lot of time and energy into it and that often means that the second year will go better than the first. I also can't decide if I want to teach Spanish again or not either; the teaching schedule is more intense, but the grading is easier. I guess I have a few months to figure things out. Hopefully any readers I still have will be able to hold on for the next little while until I get back on track.

Money Madness and Coupon Insanity

A few weeks ago I checked out a book from the library called The Cure for Money Madness. I don't normally check out books like this but it was on a display shelf and caught my eye. For years I have tried to do a better job at living within my budget and dealing more effectively with money, and for years I felt like I have not done as well as I would like to. I didn't expect to learn much from the book because I feel like I know a lot already but I just don't know how to do it. It turns out that I've really been converted to this book; it's not the most well-written book and some of it is kind of lame, but the central ideas have been really eye-opening to me. It's actually a pretty simple concept: budgets don't work if you don't fix your emotional issues regarding money. He calls these ideas 'money madness' and talks about how everyone has certain money beliefs that drive their behaviors. If you don't confront those beliefs then you will spend the rest of your life with the same spending habits and the same money problems. He has a bunch of questions and things to help you figure out what your particular money issues are and what to do when you are fully conscious of them. If you can eventually get to a state where money is not an emotional issue you will be much more able to use it wisely.

For the last few weeks I've been learning about the ideas that I have about money, whether I learned them explicitly or not. Today I had an eye-opening experience that helped me see that one of my deep-seated beliefs is that "if I save money I am a good person (and maybe better than other people)". Saving money is not a bad thing, but I've done some pretty dumb stuff just to feel like a saver, because if I don't save money then I must be 'bad'. I already wrote about some of the results of my money issues in this post about not buying the sweater I wanted because it wasn't on sale.

This morning I went to Smiths to get a few things that we needed. As usual I had my list of things that were on sale along with my coupons to match them. One of the things I had on my list was the fact that earlier this week I had loaded an electronic coupon to my savings card. It was for a 'free deli tray' and was good for up to $10. I picked out a vegetable tray that was on display and went to buy my stuff. The tray coupon didn't come through, and though I was tempted to not make a big fuss and just pay for it, I didn't feel like buying a veggie tray (I wouldn't normally buy one at all, but we are having a birthday party tomorrow for P. Bibby). I had the cashier put the tray back and went to check at customer service. She told me that the tray I had tried to buy was from produce and that I would need to pick out a tray from the deli department. When I went there I found that the only trays that were $10 were some that had carrots and celery. That's all: carrots, celery, and some ranch dip. I briefly thought about not getting the tray; I could buy a bag of baby carrots for $1 and easily get a few other nicer vegetables for less than the price of the tray. Or I could take my mother-in-law up on her offer to bring a veggie tray. But unfortunately by now my mind was in the grip of 'money madness'. I wanted my free veggie tray, even if it was lame. So I even was willing to endure the humiliation of having to get the manager to help ring up my order because my card still wasn't working right. All of that just for a bunch of lame carrot and celery sticks. See what I mean about 'money madness'?

Reading Roundup: January 2011

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

This is the book I've been talking to everyone about for the last month. It was an amazing read and I think it will go on this year's list of recommended books. I think part of the appeal is the fact that before reading it I didn't know very much about North Korea at all. Every thing in the book was new to me, and the author describes things so clearly that you feel as if things you'd never imagined were completely familiar. She also tells the stories of several different people and their disillusionment and escape from their own country. I did not expect the book to be such a page-turner; the subject doesn't seem that exciting but the way it is written really makes it compelling.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

This was a nice little break in between two more difficult, darker books. This is a nice love story about two very interesting people, but I also liked the fact that it didn't gloss over some uncomfortable contemporary realities. It was a fun book that still felt substantial.

Unbroken: An Extraordinary True Story of Courage and Survival by Laura Hillenbrand

This is another 'in' book that I've heard everyone talking about. After reading it I will agree with others who have listed it as one of their favorite books of the year. I especially liked the fact that she included the story of the protagonist's life after surviving the war rather than tying things up into a neat little ending. It enhanced the book by presenting him as a more complex individual.

Adventures of the Soul: The Best Creative Nonfiction from BYU Studies Ed. Doris Dant

I love the personal essay and thought I would love this collection. There were some pieces in it that I absolutely adored and others that I didn't really think were all that interesting. That is the nature of any anthology. I'm still thinking about some of the essays and some new insights they gave me, so I guess that is a sign of the worth of this volume.

The Outside World by Tova Mirvis

I wanted to like this book more than I did; the subject was interesting and I really liked Mirvis' other book that I have read. She is an Orthodox Jew and one of the things I like about reading her books is the chance to see how a religious person writes about her religion and culture for outsiders who don't much about it. This book raised a lot of interesting questions in my mind about my own life and my own writing, but ultimately I wasn't that impressed with it. I felt like she created many interesting characters and inner conflicts, but didn't do much with them or use them in a meaningful way. I did not feel committed to reading the book and at the end I felt myself wanting more.

Movies

Shrek Forever After

We've watched all the Shrek movies and thought they were hilarious. This one didn't seem to be all that funny and it felt a little tired. I guess it's a good thing it's the last one.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

This was also the last movie in a series and I thought it was interesting to note how different this was from the first two. It felt a little like Law and Order, since the focus is more on tying up all the loose ends from the first two movies and bringing justice to the world. I still liked it, but it wouldn't stand on its own as well as the first two.

Howl

Several reviews of this movie mentioned it's fragmented nature as a problem. It contains several different elements that don't always work together that well. I still liked it and learned a lot more about Ginsberg than I had ever known before and I thought the acting was well-done.

The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King

Until about six or seven years ago I had little interest in Tolkien, or even fantasy in general. Then I read the books and watched the movies and I feel like I can understand why they are so popular. We've been rewatching the movies since we got a projector and they are even better on the big screen. Now I can't wait until my kids are older and we can watch them all together.