Yellow Wallpaper

Wedding Cake by Josi Kilpack This was a fun and suspenseful end to this mystery series; I have enjoyed reading Kilpack's books and think she is a strong writer. She did a great job wrapping everything up in this conclusion--I like the way that each of the books has had its own plot in addition to the ongoing conflicts that have lasted through the series. Sadie is a great character and I loved watching her grow through all the crazy things she went through in each book.  Three Story House by Courtney Miller Santo My reaction to this book was mixed. I think it had a lot of potential but didn't quite come together in the end. First of all, there is a lot of mystery surrounding the house and why it was built, but none of that ever gets resolved or explained in the book. I was expecting some kind of flashback or explanation at some point that would tie together all the hints and answer the questions, but nothing was really resolved. The end matter of the book included a shor...

This has been a busy, but fun, week for me and the kids. On Tuesday we celebrated P. Bibby's birthday--she is a whopping 5 years old now. A fully potty trained, sitting in a booster in the car, going to preschool, big kid. She has always had a fairly mellow, sweet personality and that is still holding true at five. She has her moments of frustration, especially with 2 older siblings who often like to remind her of their wisdom and power, but generally is a happy kid. P. Bibby loves to color and to read books, and she loves her preschool/daycare and all her little friends there. We celebrated with a party the Saturday before her birthday at an indoor play area that has a bunch of giant inflatable slides and bounce houses. Some of her friends from church and school came as well as her cousins. She had a great time with all her friends and I'm so glad I paid the money to let some other place do the entertainment and clean-up for the party. I actually didn't get to see her on h...

I'm not a fan of January--I'm sure you can look back through this blog and find plenty of posts describing all the reasons why this is not one of my favorite months. It's long, cold, and doesn't have any birthdays or anything to make things exciting. The first part of the month is always swallowed by recovery from Christmas break, and I always set too many high expectations for the new year. This January was a mixed bag. The weather was ugly--the entire western part of the country has been stuck under a high pressure ridge that's pushing all the cold and snowy weather to the east. It's been a moderately cold, hazy, polluted month around here. I've barely seen any rain or snow, and it's gotten warm enough for trees to think they need to pop out some buds. I like winter weather and feel sad that we haven't had any this year.  I've settled into work and made plans through the rest of the year. At the end of last November I interviewed for a posi...

(Previous years: 2013 , 2012 , 2011 , 2010 , 2009 , 2008 , 2007 )  I read at total of 74 books this year; this is 14 less than I read in in 2013. I actually feel good about the number going down a bit--I work full-time and I'm in school so I don't have as much free time any more. I still should be doing other things besides reading, but finding balance in my life is still a work in progress. I did read the Whitney finalists for all the adult fiction categories this year, which accounts for 20 of the fiction books (there were 25 finalists, but I had already read some of the books in 2013). I read 61 fiction books and 13 nonfiction books, which seems to be about average for most years for me. I like nonfiction, but that usually means reading books that are dense and need more than a few hours to read. 60 of the books I read were written by women and 14 were written by men; this ratio has gone up and down for me over the years, but generally has been dominated by women. I don...

Marmee and Louisa by Eve LaPlante This was our book club for November, and I thought some parts of it were better than others. I'm not a huge fan of Little Women and I don't know a lot about Louisa May Alcott. I thought the book was most interesting when it discussed Alcott's mother, Abigail, and her life as a woman in early America. The parts about Louisa's life didn't feel as focused to me and if often seemed that the author was making assumptions about what the readers already knew about Alcott. Also, Bronson Alcott mostly seems like a horrible, selfish person in this book, so it might be good to read a biography of him some time to get a little more balance. Painting Kisses by Melanie Jacobson I've loved everything I've read so far by Jacobson, but this was not as good as some of her other books. One of the things I like about her writing is that she writes about contemporary LDS single adults in a way that is very insightful and realistic. This...

Today didn't feel very much like New Year's Eve to me. I had to go to work--this year they changed the paid holidays to the 1st and 2nd to give everyone a four-day weekend. There weren't very many people at work and not a lot to do and I ended up leaving early in order to go to the grocery store and check out some movies at the public library before it closed. We got back from our vacation on Monday night and my brain is still adjusting after being gone for a week, especially since the weather here turned bitterly cold and snowy while we were away.  According to many articles I've seen around the internet, 2014 was kind of a crappy year. Outrage on the internet, Ebola, crazy weather, unrest and protests all over the world, airplane disasters, and so on. I get it--I don't feel like 2014 was my best year either. It feels like the year flew by before I had a chance to even catch my breath and get my feet under me. I spent a lot of time doing homework and not much els...

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner It's been a few years since I last read this book and I was craving something more serious after my last fluffy book binge. The more I read Stegner, the more I love his writing. It was also interesting to re-read this book after being divorced--it's a book about marriage and relationships, and I felt like I noticed different things this time around. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty Another excellent book about marriages, although written in a very different style from Stegner. I felt like this book combined the best aspects of the two books by Moriarty that I've read previously. It had the hilarious social satire of What Alice Forgot along with the gripping mystery of The Husband's Secret (but without the awkward ending). Sure, the ending of this book was just a bit too tidy, but overall I thought it was really well-done. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova I've had this book on my list for years and never got around...

The Martian by Andy Weir I don't normally read a lot of science fiction, but this book was recommended to me by several people I trust and I thought the premise was intriguing. It was quite a lot of fun to read and rather suspenseful; nice to read something a little out of my usual comfort zone and enjoy it. Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of the Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti This was our book club pick for the month and I honestly didn't think it was all that exciting. The writing style was a bit dry and it was hard to get into the first few chapters. I think I also didn't enjoy it that much because I've never had strong feelings about the Mona Lisa, and the book didn't do much to convince me that I should. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh This was a book that I'd read many good things about, but didn't really care for much at all. I'm usually more willing to suspend disbelief for a plot when the characters are sympathetic, bu...

I took the day off work today--I've had a few sick days saved up for a while and thought it would be good to use one. I had planned on taking the afternoon off, since I had a phone appointment with the counseling center at noon and the kids had their back-to-school thing this afternoon (it used to be back-to-school night, but now for some reason it's in the afternoon). Then when I got up this morning, I just didn't feel like going in to work for only a few hours. So I got dressed and went to the temple instead; it was nice to be there and I felt good afterwards. Then I came home and had my phone appointment with the counseling center on campus--they will call in a few weeks and set up an appointment with me. I get to be some grad student's project for the semester, but at least it is cheap and easy to get to since it is on campus. I think things will be OK--I'm also going to work on getting more sleep and taking better care of myself too. This afternoon I had a fe...

Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore I picked up this book because it sounded like a good, escapist read for vacation. It got a bit too melodramatic for my taste, especially since none of the main characters were very likeable and I didn't feel like I cared about what happened to them. It wasn't bad, but I just wasn't expecting it to get quite so gothic in the end. Beautiful Unbroken by Mary Jane Nealon Nealon is a poet as well as a nurse, and this really shows in her writing. This memoir was beautiful and touching and made me think a lot about my life and what choices I have made. At the same time, sometimes I feel a bit disconnected when I read about women who have no children--the choices I can make or will make are constrained in different ways. I still enjoyed the book and thought she had some great insights about grief and compassion.  The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown I picked up this book solely based on the high number of positive recomme...

Yesterday I was going to write a blog post about how tired I have been feeling this summer. Physically tired, emotionally tired, mentally tired. Just tired. My yard has giant brown spots on it and my flowerbeds are sprouting weeds that are taller than I am. The garden has been a total bust due to my neglect and the only things still surviving are the pumpkin vines and the tomato plants. I haven't cleaned the bathrooms for about two months, there are piles of papers and books all over the house, and I'm at least four weeks behind on the reading for my class (at least all my assignments have been turned in on time). I have 10 shirts in my closet that haven't been worn for 2 months because I can't bring myself to iron them. I've been in a slump for a while--as evidenced by the dark circles under my eyes, the massive amounts of books I've been reading, and my inability to make simple decisions or to email people back about things.  When I was on my trip to Portlan...

Yes, I'm counting down the days until school is back in session. I think the kids are too, even though it's been a pretty fun summer so far. The other day I was talking to a friend who works full-time and she agreed with me that it feels better to go to work during the school year when we know the kids are happily involved in their routine and busy at school. At the same time, though, it's nice to have seasons in life and I remember just two months ago how ready for change I was. I will say that summer mornings are so much simpler for me since I only have to get myself ready and out the door.  I started the summer with a very quick trip up to Portland for my sister's graduation with a doctorate in nursing practice. I flew up Sunday afternoon and came home on Tuesday afternoon--I think I was only gone for about 48 hours. It was a lot of fun; the agenda was basically eating lots of delicious food, hanging out, and attending the graduation. We accomplished all those thin...

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell This was our book club choice for the month of May, and I'm glad I got a head start on it because it took a long time to read. It was a fun experience because it's been a long time since I had read a book this long--thankfully it's a fairly easy read for such an epic book. I did not expect to enjoy it was much as I did and I felt like it gave me a lot to think about. Fortune Cookie by Josi Kilpack This is the second-to-last of Kilpack's Sadie Hofmiller mysteries. . When I found out that this was not the last book in the series, I was worried that it would feel like the author was just trying to stretch things out too much by suddenly having Sadie's long-lost sister appear. Instead, I liked that the story really delved into family issues and problems from the past that can crop up at inconvenient times. I have also appreciated how Kilpack has often included characters who aren't very friendly, and don't get more...

I started this blog nine years ago, back when I lived in a two-bedroom apartment that didn't have any air conditioning, I was in grad school, and I only had a two-year-old. Since then I 've gained two more children, finished my degree, lived in two other states before coming back to Utah, found a full-time career and started a new graduate degree, lost my mind a few times, got my sanity back a few more times, and lost my marriage. It's been an interesting ride and I'm not even sure if I've got anyone else still reading what I post.  I've posted quite a few times about blogging , why I started a blog, my feelings about blogging, and why I keep at it. Back when I started this whole thing, blogging was the new, exciting thing to do. Facebook, and Twitter weren't around yet, and even smartphones and the ubiquity of texting weren't that big. YouTube wasn't here, and most 'viral' stuff was shared through emails. Communication has changed a lot du...