Welcoming Briley Paige Bell

Yesterday was a glorious day as Briley Paige Bell finally made her way into this crazy, beautiful world.

I got to meet her just hours after her arrival, unlike her big sister, Lyla, who was born in Chattanooga (I didn't get to meet Lyla for months!). I was fortunate enough to be in the room when Briley and Lyla met. Lyla, who will be two in June, doesn't quite know what to think of little sis just yet, but she will be warmed up to her in no time. In fact, she was already getting more comfortable in the short time they spent together yesterday.

Both Lisa and baby are healthy and happy and were released to go home (already) and settle in.

And in other news...I *finally* finished the diaper cake I began months ago for Lisa's baby shower. Yes, it's that wacky in my world. Turned out really cute and I absolutely adore the three girls I've thrown showers for this year, but It honestly wouldn't bother me if I never created another diaper cake in my life. Well...at least for a year or so.

Enjoy your eve. On to Domestic
Goddess duties for yours truly.

Oh! Well, hello new blog layout.

I don't have time for this, blogger. I rarely have time to compose, let alone spend the extra 57 seconds figuring out where to post. [sighs]

Moving on, I saw this article on Yahoo this morning and [wow!]. It's about an autistic boy who is demeaned by his special-needs teachers. And I've just gotta say: I love his dad. What a genuinely amazing father in a world where there are so few to be found. For that matter, what a genuinely amazing human in a world where there are so few to be found.

Do me a favor and sign his petition at Change.org (a site I highly recommend).

I need to find a positive news site.
Seems like I'm reposting more and more outrageously negative articles.
Need to find my happy place again.

[Additional sigh] ... back to work.

Ramblings of the Sickling

Yup, I'm sick again. This is my sixth round of antibiotics this year. I've counted. And it's only April. Of course, they haven't all been for infections, some have been preventive, but six nonetheless.

So this is what my day's looked like:

Yup, that's pretty much my day.

So now I'm bored. And I haven't blogged in quite a while. So...here goes:

First off, let's start with my current read.

I've begun reading quite a bit with my Kindle. In fact, I've read so much that I've decided to simply read whatever the rage is. This isn't to say that I'll enjoy it. I'm a self-admitted literary snob (four years of reading legitimate literature will do that to you), but I've been known to indulge in a guilty pleasure every now and then.

When my issue of Entertainment Weekly  came in, I was surprised to find that it was a literary edition-one of two editions, actually, the first highlighting The Hunger Games (I finished it; it was not excellent writing, to be certain but it wasn't as bad as the Twilight Series--after all, what could be?) and the second highlighting Fifty Shades of Grey. I didn't read the article. (As an aside, I have read, altogether, one issue of Entertainment Weekly and this wasn't it.) But the inside of the cover said Fifty Shades of Grey is the book "everyone" is buzzing about. Okay, I thought, I'll bite.

A friend shared it with me electronically (she had not read it, either), and I started on it this week.

Whoa. This book should have come with a warning! It's all BMSM! "Mommy porn," they call it. Again, having skipped any recommendation, synopsis, etc. I had no clue what I was getting into. Porn it is. Hard core porn. Literary porn. The kind of porn that would make the editors at Hustler blush.

Ahhh, the word blush. Over and over. And over.
And the phrase "inner goddess." Over and over. And over.

And the "heroine" biting that damned bottom lip. Over and over. And over.

This book isn't just dark writing, twisted writing, it's terrible writing.

I can understand that the subject matter may be the type that creates a stir, but erotic literature isn't new to the scene, and this certainly isn't good writing. I can honestly say I have never read erotic literature before, therefore I don't have a gauge of comparison, so perhaps this is simply more graphic? And that's creating the "buzz"? I'm not sure. What I do know is this: I feel cheated. I can tell you that at the moment I read the phrase "anal fisting" I had to stop and ask myself if this is the direction I intended to go in my literary pursuits. And it isn't, of course.

There must be a slew of sexually unsatisfied Moms out there. Thinking, somehow, that reading porn must be more acceptable than watching it. I'm not condemning either. But it could at least be good dark/twisted writing, particularly to have such a following.
("He's about as good for me as cotton candy is nutritious" Oi!)
Once I got about half way through the book, I decided to look up some reviews online and I was surprised to see how many people absolutely love the series. Love it! Surely, there is no way! Maybe I am not gauging it as I should: Wouldn't comparing E L James to Faulkner be the same as comparing Shindler's List to Shindler's Fist? (I admit, I did google that. There is an epic list of porn parodies, evidently--very funny stuff.) And their goals are entirely different. Which is fine. But if this-Mommy porn-is going to be the new rage, it's going to need a new category created for it, and it's going to need to be tagged as such. Not simply as "fiction."

Speaking of unreliable ratings (I must remember that I am not the average person, and reviews are created for the average person), I almost forewent the movie pictured above (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) because it received less-than-stellar ratings on IMB and Rotten Tomatoes. I thought a nap might do me more good. But in watching the first few minutes (and in knowing Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks (both of whom I regard highly) star in it), I decided to go ahead and watch it through.  I am so glad I did! I hadn't heard much about the movie (heck, I don't hear much about any movie--or book, evidently), but it was incredibly moving. I was touched, deeply. I do think it was sad and deep and dark--another post 9/11 drama--and I'm sure my disposition required something more light-hearted, but I enjoyed it and I highly recommend it. Here's the trailer if you don't want to find yourself in the fifty-shades-position (pardon the pun) I mentioned earlier.

Lemme see what else?

• Daddy 2.0 bought me a riding mower and I have now mowed my first lawn. In my first home.[does happy dance] Cutting the yard was quite meditative. We'll see if I feel the same when the temps hit 100+ degrees.
• Mom planted flowers...still don't have a garden or flower bed, per say, but I got them free from others' gardens and we needed to get 'em in the ground, so it's a start.
• Tommy got a new boat (not brand new, but new to us) and it's ah-mazing. We've been on it half a dozen times already and I am a sun-tanned goddess (thank you, Cherokee complexion)  Kiera's already planned her 15th birthday down in/on Moon Lake with a day on the water.
• And speaking of kiddo, her braces could be off in as little as a month. Stoked doesn't even begin to cover it. I've begun creating a goodie for her, although I'm not gonna post about it til I give it to her on the off chance that she will read my blog (finally) at the most inopportune time.

I'm bored again.

Now to find something else to do (cleaning this filthy house would be a great start).

And Mom's bringing a pot of her beloved potato soup over. It's nice to be taken care of, even as an adult.

Happy day, y'all. :)

 

 

To the Victor Go the Spoils

I heard about this on the radio this morning and then it was a top news article in Yahoo when I logged in.

I wonder what you all think about it. Seems to be split among Yahoo readers/commenters (or is that commentators?) I, for one, can understand the desire to question the team's loyalty, given that the TX Tech program did ultimately give provide them with the training (etc.) that earned the National Championship. On the other hand, Texas Tech clearly didn't appreciate the team as much as they should have. I'm sure they were more focused on the important (albeit inferior) arenas of football, basketball, etc. (I hated this at my own college).

 So, as I said, to the victor go the spoils.
Or something like that.

Like all things in life, success = opportunities & options.
Good luck to the team and their coach.

Because Two in Two is Just So Tempting

I just glanced quickly through 2012's blogs and realize I have really been MIA this year. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of reasons (excuses) not to blog. And that to-do list I keep citing? I swear it just won't go away.  Home-ownership (while I still love it) is definitely more work than I'd expected.

Now I know why people get married: when you own a home you have to live with another person to (1) afford the place (2) cover the necessary hours of manpower (3) still find time to see your significant other (easy when they sleep in the same bed as you, right?).

I'm not going to give up; I'll just keep chipping away at it and hope that this is temporary.
Also, massive amounts of caffeine should help.

When I worked at Sam's, we had a customer named Bill who came in and drank glass after glass after glass of milk. No one liked waiting on him for this reason, but I didn't mind. The other servers joked that he needed a milk IV.

I think I need a coffee IV.
Portable, please.

March 28th and I’m still opening Christmas gifts…

Did I mention that my amazing boyfriend went overboard at Christmas? Of course, this isn’t what makes him amazing, but his thoughtfulness and generosity certainly helped to reel me in and amaze me pretty much daily.
As I said, he went overboard:

Unbelievably, this isn't even all of it.

I have already enjoyed a few of my gifts immensely, especially the kitchen items (plenty of entertaining in our home these days) and the gift cards. Others (like the Snuggy, not shown) have been deemed a dud and have already been pushed to the back of a closet.

And there are still others I have yet to open and /or use. Among the latter (until last week, at least) was the Kindle Fire. I have to admit: I was skeptical. I enjoy the written word. On paper. I mourn the loss of the newspaper as we migrate to electronic news. The same holds true for books and magazines. While I am also a self-described tree lover (and subscribe to the old-school “save a tree” sentiment), there is just something special about the feel of a book in your hands, the spine across your fingers, the smell of the paper (especially in older books) that draws me in.

The kindle offers me none of these.

So when Tommy bought me the Kindle for Christmas (unsolicited), I was interested but not excited. In fact, my excitement was so scarce that it took me a full ten weeks to pull the Kindle out and begin to learn it. For the first week, I played on the web. A bit. Certainly nothing extreme or exciting. It is faster than my laptop but loses its signal far more often (I’m certain the poor connectivity is due to my less-than-desirable internet provider more than the Kindle, laptop, iPhone or iPod as we have the same problem with all our devices). I navigated through its most basic of capabilities and my interest grew, though only mildly.

Prior to my owning a Kindle, I developed a preconceived notion of the price of an eBook. I had no basis for this number: it was purely arbitrary. After all, it’s an eBook; there is no production cost, no material cost. So the price point I set in my head (again, purely arbitrary) was $3.99. You can imagine my surprise to learn that many of the eBooks are, in fact, more expensive than their hard-copy counterpart. $9.99 for the Kindle edition of Mississippi Sissy (one of my favorite books) while the paperback is $5.99 new! This further led to my discouragement and I’ve yet to pay for a Kindle book, downloading only the Amazon freebies, which are generally books that I will, in all honesty, probably never read. I’ve yet to begin even one of those freebies.

And then there was last night.

After some “virtual” complaining, my wonderful friend Lisa offered up her services. She has an extensive Kindle book collection, including several books I’d asked about specifically. We spent no more than an hour setting the Kindle up for email sharing, retrieving books from her account and getting my settings in order.

So last night before bed I decided to move into this century and give the Kindle a fair shot at making an impression.

And (oh boy) did it!

I love this thing. Absolutely. Love. It. While I’m still a bit saddened that the tangible qualities of the hard-copy are lost, I can still make notes, highlight, bookmark. I can look up a word’s definition while I’m reading. I can change my background, the text and background colors, even the margins. I can see how much progress I’ve made, skip to a specific chapter, even search for words in the text (that would’ve been useful in college!).

Simon & Schuster can’t touch that!

I’m literally one day in, and I’m in awe. I had no clue that ceasing to fumble through pages or bookmark your spot could make such a difference. I haven’t even read my handbook to determine what other tricks I’m missing, but I am definitely looking forward to it.

And, as I am fortunate in that I have MANY a “Lit geek” friend, I’m sure I will never run out of either great book suggestions or free downloads of those books.

I look forward to more of these instances wherein my natural pessimism is defeated by pleasant surprises. Sometimes being wrong isn’t so bad, after all.

Happy reading, y'all!

The fight against MM is making headlines again

My amazing friend Jana was featured in the local media again this weekend, when Fox 13 did a feature on Jana and her battle against Multiple Myeloma:
http://www.myfoxmemphis.com//dpp/health/stem-cell-transplant-offers-new-lease-on-life-rpt-20120316

Though I've posted little about it on FB (and even less on my blog), Jana is at Vanderbilt in Nashville working on stem cell transplant #3, this time using her brother Van's harvested stem cells. The transplant, the hardest of the three so far, took place Wednesday, March 7th, and Jana appears to be doing great-she's even eating on her own, which is a huge feat for her!

I'll try to keep things updated on her...and as a quick plug, next year's (although technically that's *this* year's) Miles for Myeloma walk/run is scheduled for November 11th, so start thinking about how you'd like to get involved!

Sincerely,
Team Jana