Old Soul, Young Heart

This year has been a bit of a shit show. In general, I believe I'm pretty good about keeping life in perspective. A lot of times I see things that others complain about to be rather inconsequential. I am able to see the good.  But this year has been a bit of a shit show. It could've been worse... yes. But it definitely could've been better. Philip took a job that he despised. I was in a bit of a funk for part of the year (sort of depressed?). My dad was in the hospital. We dealt with cat drama. My car was broken into and my purse was stolen. A lot of friends and family dealt with crazy situations. Our country elected a clown for president. I've struggled with my job a bit. Some of that is #firstworldproblems. We have jobs! Everyone's depressed! People are in the hospital! Cars get broken into and identities get stolen! I understand, but it is what it is. In the midst of a not great year, I still tried to remember (every once in a while... when I was

I thought it would be good to read a book that is kind of a classic. I never was assigned this one in high school or college, but I know a lot of people were required to read it, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I had no idea what to expect going into this. The title is kind of mysterious; I'm not sure if anyone knows what it means prior to reading the book. I didn't know when it was written (1951, if you're curious). I just learned that this book was banned in the 1960s because people believed it was linked to Communism? It was considered to be very controversial during that time. I guess I can see how it could be viewed as a little scandalous, but Communist? Not so sure on that one. Anyway, I really liked this book. It was very entertaining and wasn't at all what I thought a book written in 1951 would be like. It follows the story of a kid who was kicked out of a prep school in Pennsylvania and then sort of wanders around New York City, his hometown. I wa

I think I heard of this book when I was in grad school and the title caught my attention. I've had it in my queue for awhile and finally got around to reading it. We learned briefly about race identity development in grad school, but this went into more detail. I was kind of concerned with this one that it would be very academic, jargony, and hard to read. I thought I might start and not finish it because it wouldn't hold my attention. It was a surprisingly easy read that did keep me interested. There were a lot of first-hand experiences that made it feel like a personal narrative.  I'm always interested in the life experiences of others, especially those that are very different from me. Some of the stories were pretty eye-opening. To be honest, there were parts in it where I was like, "Really? C'mon." This is a true testament to how much I don't know about the experiences of black people. (And the book taught me it's okay to say "b

Now that I am nearing 32 years old and it's been over 12 years since my mom died, I find it completely lonely to be a motherless daughter. In the past, it's been hard. Now... it's really difficult. It's difficult because I suppose after 12 years I'm not supposed to get teary-eyed almost every time I think about her for more than a few seconds during the day. It is obvious that I think about her every day. Every day she crosses my mind, but not every day do I think about her for more than a few seconds. On those days when I cross the threshold of thinking about her for more than a few seconds, I am in tricky territory because I start thinking about things like, "My mom doesn't know who I am anymore, because I am a totally different person than I was when I was 19" or "I bet Mom would be proud of me" or "I wish I could talk to/ask my mom about this" or "I wonder what my mom's opinion was about that," or "I wonde

Ken Follett is an author that I discovered while I was in England. My house mum and dad had encouraged me to read a book of his entitled "The Pillars of the Earth" because it was about building cathedrals in England during the 1100s. Once they had heard that I loved cathedrals, they thought I would enjoy the book. They were right! I also read a second book of Follett's while I was in England called "World Without End" which is kind of a follow-up to the first book and includes the same characters in a future generation. I love Follett's writing style, so I wanted to enjoy another book of his. "Whiteout" is about a pharmaceutical company in Scotland that holds samples of dangerous diseases in order to study the effects on animals, as well as potentially find cures. There is a plot by criminals to steal a sample for biological warfare. It's action-packed and would probably make an interesting movie. I enjoyed this book, but was bored at ce

I first learned of Georgiana from the movie,  The Duchess . I saw the movie in the theater around the time that I started to become obsessed with England. I loved Pride and Prejudice from 2004 and this movie also starred Keira Knightley, was set in England, and was a period piece... so really it was just a perfect mix of everything I love. At the time I didn't know that the movie was based on a real person. I've had this book for awhile and, to be quite honest, read about the first 100 pages and skimmed the rest. It is really dense. I'm pretty sure the author, Amanda Foreman, used this book as her Ph.D. dissertation, so it's very detailed and involved. It is a true biography and would be good to use as a part of a research paper or something. The historical side of what I skimmed was interesting. It fascinates me to learn about the way of life in the past--"proper" ways to be, the culture of the place and time, attitudes about issues, etc. Of cou

One of my favorite authors is Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat Pray Love . I know a lot of people probably think that book is silly (I mean, the title kind of is), but it's a great book and it really introduced me to her as a writer and I love all of her other books. Anyway, I follow her on Facebook and Instagram and she's basically just a really inspirational person and makes me want to be better. At the beginning of 2015, she posted a photo of herself with this ginormous glass jar and explained that every day she puts a little note inside this jar about something she's grateful for or happy about on that day. I'm trying to be a more mindful and grateful person and this seemed like a nice, easy, tangible way to give thanks. So I did it for 2015! Well, I tried to do it. I did not do it every day... in fact I have exactly 73 entries out of 365 days. But it's something. Here's what I wrote in no particular order. Beautiful azalea at Phil & Joy's Engl