Thoughts on the New Year

Here are a few miscellaneous observations to begin the year.

First, the weather is crazy. Yesterday, temperatures dipped into the single digits, and this morning when I woke up, it was -8 degrees. As I’ve said before, I love a good snow day as much as the next person, but I don’t like these frigid temperatures at all. I’m very glad that I haven’t had to leave the house. On the flip side, though, Byron and Nicole have had to get out in this to go to work, and I don’t like that at all. Byron only has a five-minute drive, so that’s not so bad. It’ll take longer for his car to warm up than it will take for him to get to work; however, yesterday, his car doors wouldn’t even open. Fortunately, his boss came by and picked him up and took him to work. Nicole, on the other hand, has at least a half-hour drive to get to work. The good thing is that she only has to drive on Priority A roads (the first to get cleared). She has been late the last four days she has worked, though, because of me. I simply wouldn’t let her leave the house in the dark, with snow flying and ice on the roads. When conditions improved, and it was daylight, I let her leave. She wasn’t terribly late, and thankfully those at the bank are very understanding. Here’s the thing everybody needs to remember. No job is worth losing your life over. If conditions are not safe, either call in, or wait for conditions to improve, then go in. The bank can hire a new teller. I can’t replace my daughter, and that’s my primary concern.

For those who have to be out and about traveling, be sure to have some blankets in your car. With these frigid temperatures, it’s important to have more than one blanket. The more people in your car, the more you will need. If you are not wearing a good coat, boots, gloves, scarf, and hat, then be sure you have these in your car as well. No one plans to be in an accident or to have car trouble, but sometimes it happens, and for your own safety, especially in these frigid temperatures, you need to be prepared. Obviously, the best option is to stay indoors if you don’t have to be out.

With the weather, our break from school has obviously been extended. With school already canceled for tomorrow, that makes our fifth snow day of the year, and it’s just January 7. It’s looking like we’ll be going until the end of May or early June. There’s no use getting bent out of shape about that. It is what it is. It’s always interesting to listen to folks who are so excited to get snow days, then those same folks complain like crazy when we have to make those days up. It’s also interesting to see who goes stir crazy having to stay at home and who is just fine with it. I’m one of the ones who is just fine with it. There’s usually so much going on during a normal school week, that when I get a few days to stay home, I’m perfectly content not to leave. I have no problem finding things to do, even if it’s just sitting in the recliner with a blanket and a book.

Yesterday also started my renewed attempt at weight loss for the year. I like for my weeks to run Monday through Sunday, so even though I posted my plan last week at the beginning of the month, it didn’t actually kick in until yesterday. I hadn’t completely stopped exercising during the holiday season, but I was only doing the walking DVD periodically and sporadically. I didn’t do the toning DVDs at all. So today, after two days back into the actively-trying-to-lose-weight plan, my arms and legs hate me. I have followed the plan thus far (granted, it has only been a day and a half), but after doing 10 minutes of toning for my arms yesterday and today, I’m feeling it. I also did the one-mile morning walks yesterday and today, and yesterday, I did the second day of the Couch to 5K training. Later today, probably before bed, I will do the two-mile DVD walk. I’ve had to adjust my menu to reflect that I’m not working. On a normal day, I’ll have breakfast around 7:30, but not on a snow day. I have, thus far, managed to stick to the menu. Hopefully, this will continue. With no school again tomorrow, I do still plan to do the workouts I have planned, though my legs will probably hate me even more since the toning exercises move to the legs tomorrow, and I do still plan to keep following my menus. I am determined to lose this weight. I’ve even set a mini-goal that I will be able to buy two new dresses in May (one for Travis’s graduation from UK and the other for Brandon’s wedding) that will be a size smaller than the dresses I wore last summer for Cody’s and Byron’s weddings. It would be so easy to let snow days do me in. After all, when I’m here with the fridge all day, it’s tempting to just go get something to eat for no real reason, but I’m managing not to do that, so far.

Whatever you’re choosing to do with these snow days and these frigid temperatures, I hope you are managing to enjoy yourself, and I certainly hope that you are making safe, wise decisions if you are out and about in this ferocious weather. As for me, I still have a book to finish (need to try to reach that goal of 84, and right now, I’m still on the first book of the year), so I’m off to enjoy the rest of my snow day with my Kindle.

Fire Convenient, but Not Necessary to Kindle My Love of Reading

For Christmas, my wonderful husband got me a Kindle Fire, among other things. Last year (2011), he had gotten me a Kindle for my birthday, and I was enjoying it more than I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, I still love holding an actual book in my hands, turning pages while I read, using a real bookmark to mark my spot, and closing up the book when I’ve made it to the end. I can’t do any of those things when reading on my Kindle, but I have still enjoyed the convenience the Kindle allows me.

As my kids starting getting the Kindle Fire for themselves, I was intrigued enough to want to upgrade, and thankfully my husband took care of that for me. Fortunately, Amazon doesn’t place a limit on the number of Kindles that can be registered to an account, because I currently have seven registered to my account – my original one, and then a Fire for Byron, Nic, Cody, Tiffany, Ashley, and, now, me. The great thing is that we can share books and apps.

For the most part, when it comes to apps, most of what has been applied to our account has been free apps. There is the occasional app that somebody will pay for, but even then, I don’t recall anybody paying more than $5 for an app. Often, we also choose free books. A lot of the books on our Cloud are classics, and I have chosen some free books as well. That’s not to say that on occasion one of us doesn’t buy a book just for the Kindle. The great thing about all these Kindles on one account is that whatever one person buys goes to the Cloud and is available for all of us. All we have to do is download it to our own device.

Now that I have the Kindle Fire, I’m quite happy. I’m not going to stop reading actual books that I can hold in my hands, but there are so many other things I can do with the Fire. I will use my Fire for reading books, but I also have several apps that I will enjoy. There are games, such as Scrabble, Unolingo, Tetris, Solitaire, Jewels Star, Logo Quiz, Words with Friends, Jeopardy, and The American Bible Challenge. I have apps for Pinterest, WordPress, and Facebook on there. Two other apps that I’m looking forward to using are the WWPP Calculator (Weight Watchers Points Plus) and Lose It! I’ll be revising my weight-loss goal for 2013, and I’m hoping the combination of these two apps will make achieving that goal a little easier for me.

There are many other things I could choose to do with my Kindle Fire, including adding music, videos, and pictures, but I’m not sure I will do that. I still use my iPod for listening to music. I don’t know that I want to watch videos on a 7-inch screen, and I have pictures on my iPod and my phone, so I’m just not sure if I’ll be moving pictures over to the Fire or not. There’s a tab for audiobooks, but I’ve never been fond of “listening” to a book, so I don’t see myself using that. I’m also not sure how often I’ll use the tab for the newsstand. The tab for docs may come in handy. I won’t upload a lot of documents to work with, but it will be handy for carrying around the file that has my booklist. Too often I’m in a bookstore and can’t remember if I have a certain book. Being able to access this list will make life much easier. I’m sure there will be times when I’ll have another document that it will be handy to have easy access to, and when that happens, I’ll simply move it to the Kindle. Finally, there is the web link, and I’m sure that when wi-fi is available and I don’t have the laptop handy, I will be using the web browser. I’m not sure how often that will be, but it’s nice to have it if I want it.

I’ve only had my Kindle Fire for five days, but I’m very grateful to my husband for getting it for me. I had used my old Kindle more than I thought I would in the year and a half that I’ve had it, and I imagine that I’ll use the Fire even more. A couple weeks ago, someone was talking to me and said that she had read her first actual book in over a year, and it seemed weird to her to be reading a book where she had to hold it and turn pages because over the year she had only been reading books on her Kindle. I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point. I have decided that I like the convenience of reading on the Kindle, but I still love to hold and read actual books. The great thing about this device is that it does not have to replace your books. It can complement them. As for me, I’ll use my Fire as much for the other apps as I will for reading, and I will still be reading actual books along the way.

Nap Time, Anyone?

Today’s one of those days when sitting around and doing absolutely nothing would be great. It’s been a long week, and there’s still one work day left. August has been extremely busy. Between my going back to work, moving Cody into his dorm, and helping Trav and Nic take care of some things, it seems there’s been very little time to rest. And it doesn’t look to get any better any time soon.

That’s OK, though. I love doing stuff for my kids. Tonight, though, I just really don’t want to do much. I stayed after school to help Rena with academic team practice, which means I got home an hour later than usual. I had a snack and loaded the dishwasher. I sent Byron a text giving him the option of bringing home a pack of ground beef (I have hamburger buns) or a pack of hot dog buns (I have hot dogs) for supper. Either will be quick and easy, and tonight that’s what I’m looking for.

In addition to still having to fix supper later, I do have some essays that I should read. The AP class has turned in their summer essays, and I really need to get those read and out of the way. I would like to read some more of the book I’m reading, but in order to do that, I’ll have to stay awake, and right now I’m drifting off. It’s really looking like a short nap will be in order before I can do much of anything that would be slightly productive.

If anything’s going to get accomplished, though, I first must start. So, I’ll start with that short nap, then I’ll move on to cooking supper, and from there, I’ll read essays and maybe even get to read the Kindle for a little while.

The weekend will be here shortly, and I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, I have to get through this evening and tomorrow.

All Packed and Ready to Go

We’re still waiting for my granddaughter to arrive. I have my packing done, so when Trav calls, I can just load the stuff into the car and head to Lexington. After I packed, though, I had to make a list (you all know how fond I am of lists) so I wouldn’t forget to take anything with me. After I made the list, it hit me, yet again, how much things have changed since I gave birth to my children.

I’ve already looked at what seems like a bazillion new gadgets for babies, things that would’ve made things much easier 25 years ago when Byron was born. And the interesting thing is that when I had Byron, my mom pointed out all the things I had that made things easier for me than they had been for her. I suppose that’s just the way of things, but even 25 years ago when Byron was born, I looked at all the conveniences I had for taking care of that baby boy, and I wondered how in the world anybody had been able to take care of a baby in previous centuries. I guess it just comes down to the fact you do what you have to do with what you have, but let’s just say, I’m glad I was having my children in the 20th century.

When I think back about packing to go to the hospital when I had my kids, it was really quite simple. Basically all that was needed was a  suitcase of clothes for me, a couple outfits and a few gadgets for the baby. Then I look at the list I just made, those “essential” things I have to take when I head to Lexington. Obviously, there is a suitcase of clothes for me and Jimmy, and there is the toiletry bag (the one I keep packed so it’s ready to go at a moment’s notice for whatever situation may arise). Since we’ll likely be spending a night or two at Trav’s, there is the air mattress so we aren’t sleeping on the floor. After that, though, it’s just the fun stuff that, sad as it may be, have become essential items for a trip – the cell phone, the laptop, the iPod, the digital camera and the Sony Handycam, the Kindle, and, of course, chargers for all those gadgets.

The rapid pace of technological developments blows my mind anyway. As soon as a product hits the market, it’s already out-of-date. My current list includes things I never would have thought possible 25 years ago when Byron was born. I can’t even begin to imagine what we will have by the time my granddaughter is ready to become a mother.

It is what it is, though. We rely heavily on these technological gizmos, and that won’t change. As more products are developed and marketed, we’ll become even more dependent on them. There are advantages and disadvantages to that, but that’s a blog for another day. For now, I’ll be passing my day using those various devices to get things accomplished (I am still working on getting things ready for school to start, wondering how I ever managed to get anything done before I had the laptop) and waiting for my granddaughter to arrive. I have the list on the nightstand, so I’m ready to go, as long as in my excitement I don’t forget to check the list.

Books Make a Home Reader-Friendly

I recently discovered and read an article that was originally published in 2010, but it justifies all the books in my house, so I like it. Not that I need anything to justify all the books in my house. I love books and that’s what I choose to indulge in. I have a job, so I can choose my indulgences. All that aside, though, it was interesting to read about a study that should encourage others to also indulge in books.

According to the article (I’ll include the link at the end), the more books in one’s house, the more likely the children who live there will have more educational success. The article is based on a 20-year study from across the world and highlights that the number of books in one’s home has more influence upon a child than the parents’ nationality, educational level, or income.

We all know that reading is important, and by the time a child enters school, he or she has already started to form opinions about reading. Those opinions are based on what they see at home, before they ever step foot inside a classroom. The presence of books in the home places an importance on reading. If a child believes the parents find reading important, the child will be more likely to find reading important. I have four children. Three of them are regular readers who love reading probably as much as I do. Trav reads less than the other three, but he does read.

I have often had people ask me what magic trick I used to get my kids to read. The answer is simple really. Whatever a child sees happening in his or her home on a regular basis is what that child will perceive as normal. I read to my kids when they were little. As they grew, they saw me reading. A lot. As far as they were concerned, that was normal. It was what people did. So when they learned to read, they did it. To this day, there are sometimes things they ask for that I have to tell them we just can’t afford right then, so they have to wait. The one exception is when they ask for books. If they asked for books, I always tried, and usually succeeded, at finding a way to get them the books they wanted. I believe reading is that important.

There are many things in the world today that compete for our children’s attention. We should always encourage reading and make books available for our children. If we find it important and place value on it, then despite all the other things out there, our children will choose to be readers. Children can be readers and still indulge from time to time in other activities. Just because my children are readers doesn’t mean they don’t also have other activities they enjoy. It’s up to the parents and caregivers, though, to make sure that children have access to books and to encourage reading by placing value on reading. I plan to continue this tradition with my grandchildren. I have no doubt they will grow up in homes with a number of books. In fact, some of the first things I bought for my granddaughter were books.

In the age of e-readers, I have to wonder how this will impact the results of this study as a home can contain many books without the book actually sitting on the shelf. Hopefully, owners of e-readers are mostly like me and still value the presence of an actual book. I do enjoy my Kindle, but I still enjoy the presence of all the actual books in my home, and there are still series that I will always buy the actual book.

One of the greatest gifts you can give a child is a love of reading. Before you can give that gift, though, there has to be access to books. In the home is a good place to start.

If you are interested in reading the article, you can find it at the following link: http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat265.shtml

Half the Year Down, Half to Go

Wow. Six months of 2012 are gone. It’s almost unbelievable. The older you get, the faster time passes. I’m not sure how that is possible, but it is true nonetheless. The best thing we can do is make the most of each and every day. And now that the end of June has arrived, it’s time for me to update on the status of those New Year’s resolutions I made six months ago.

1. Writing. Yes, I have managed to write something every day, even on those days I didn’t really want to. I’ve also managed to post a blog every day, even when I spent five days in Sweetwater, TN, with no internet. Luckily, I can access WordPress with an app on my phone. I have also worked on my project, though not always two days per week. I have, however, made significant progress on it, and I am very happy about that. There are days when I work on the project when I start to feel very overwhelmed, but then I manage to make some progress and I feel much better, and I can convince myself that I will actually finish it.

2. Reading. I’m really starting to wonder if I bit off more than I can chew with this one. I set a goal of 75 books for the year, a measly 6.25 books per month, and then I got behind and have been playing catch up ever since. I’m still slightly behind. I should be at 37.5 books, and I’ve managed to read 27 and have started two others, one an actual book and one on my Kindle. I’m still hoping to catch up, but it will be a little more difficult. In July, I will start revising lesson plans to get ready for a new school year, and my granddaughter will be arriving, though I’ve been known to read and hold babies before. I’m still hoping to catch up. I’m nothing if not stubborn.

So, what have I read this lovely month of June? First up was The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson. I had read the first two books in the series a couple of years ago, and I thought I had read this one already, but after checking my database, I discovered I had not, so I had to remedy that. This may have been my favorite of the three. It best shows that this is Lisbeth Salander’s story above all else. Next up, I reread my favorite Ray Bradbury book, Fahrenheit 451. After Bradbury passed away early in the month, I just felt drawn back to the book and gave it another read. It never gets old for me. After that, I read bird by bird by Anne Lamott. This is a book that Cody was given as part of his creative writing class at Governor’s Scholars last summer. I’ve had it for nearly a year now, and when he said that Tiffany was also given a copy of the book in her creative writing class for Governor’s Scholars (she is on a different campus), I decided it was time to check it out. I’m glad it did. She reaffirmed some things about writing for me, and I decided I’m going to check with the librarian to see if she can order a class set to supplement Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft that I use for my AP Language class. Next on the list was Christine by Stephen King, a classic of his that I had yet to read. I enjoyed the story, but have decided that in the same way I will never own a Saint Bernard, I will also never own a Plymouth Fury. The last book to make it in for June was Lynn Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves. This is one of the required summer readings for the AP Language kids, and I always reread the assigned books as well. This is a favorite of mine, this book about punctuation. The kids are usually 50/50 with the book; they either love it or hate it. I rarely have one in the middle on this one.

3. Weight loss. I have managed to lose a couple more pounds, and I have also rededicated myself to this one. Thus, at the beginning of the week, I began to once again use the Weight Watchers points system to track my eating. If all goes well, and I’m working hard so far to make sure it does, I can lose at least five or six pounds before school starts.

4. Recipes. This one is still going fabulously. Our first recipe was Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken, a recipe I found on Pinterest. This was amazing. Four ingredients are all you need – chicken, brown sugar, butter, and garlic. And as a bonus, a serving is only three Weight Watchers points. I can’t wait to fix this one again. We also made Kara Sigle’s Twice Baked Potatoes. She was a contestant on Next Food Network Star. The recipe turned out to be very similar to our own Baked Potato Casserole recipe, and we actually preferred ours to hers, so I doubt we’ll be using that particular recipe again. For Ashley’s baby shower, I made a Peanut Butter Fruit Dip and a Peanut Butter Cheese Ball. Both recipes are from Pinterest. The fruit dip wasn’t as big a hit as the cheese ball, but everybody seemed to love the cheese ball. I had several requests for that recipe. I also made Spicy Chicken Tortilla Roll-Ups for the shower, another Pinterest recipe, and these were also a success. We also found a Pork Tenderloin with Pan Sauce recipe on Pinterest, and it was amazing. And like the Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken, it’s low on the Weight Watchers points scale. The last recipe for this month was a creation Jimmy threw together to mimic the Applebee’s N’awlins Skillet dish. I didn’t taste the dish from Applebee’s, but I can say that Jimmy’s creation was really good.

5. Updates. This one is hard to mess up. As long as I post the update on the resolutions I manage to keep resolution number 5. Perhaps that’s the reason I made this one; I know it will be the most difficult to mess up, and I can feel some success. And perhaps I can use the success I feel here to motivate me to success on the others.

Re-Kindle Your Interest in Reading

I love to read, and if I had more time, I’d do a lot more of it. My problem isn’t trying to find something that interests me. Instead, my problem is choosing from all the books I have available that I just haven’t had time to get to yet.

Right now, I’m reading Othello because that’s what my AP kids are reading. I also have a huge stack of books that I want to read and I’m just waiting for a series of snow days so I can do just that. It probably doesn’t help that I keep adding to the stack, either by buying new books or adding more free ones to my Kindle.

The Kindle is working out pretty well for me. I must admit I like it better than I thought I would. It really is much easier to take it with me when I travel, rather than taking 4-5 actual books which weigh in pretty heavily in a purse, bag, or suitcase. Another benefit of the Kindle is I can switch easily back-and-forth between books. I added a couple of versions of the Bible to my Kindle, the NIV and the English Standard Version, and while I still have the hard copy of my Bible, it is easier to carry the Kindle around and have access and be able to read from the Bible whenever I want. Another thing I like about the Kindle is there’s no need for bookmarks and certainly no need to turn down a page. When I move from one book to another and then return to the first book, it’s right there on the page where I left it.

I still love my actual books, though. I still handle my books with care, and only turn down pages in the most extreme of circumstances. I have plenty of bookmarks available to keep my place in the books I read.  After getting the Kindle, though, one thing I’ve found is that I generally have more than one book in progress at a time. I have the book I’m reading, and I have a book that I’m reading on the Kindle. It’s actually quite convenient that way.

Right now, I have to decide which book I want to read next, an actual book, not a Kindle book. I’ll probably go with the one that just came in today, Janet Evanovich’s Smokin’ Seventeen, since I have been waiting a while for it to be released in paperback. If you haven’t read the Stephanie Plum series, I suggest it. I hope the movie that comes out in January does the series justice. After this one, I’ll probably move on to my next Mr. Monk book. For those of you who enjoyed the Monk series, there’s a whole series of books based on the characters from the show, and it’s a fun series. If you ever watched the show, you won’t be disappointed. Lee Goldberg does a great job of bringing the characters to life as we learned to love them on the series, and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

So, it’s time for me to stop writing for the evening, and to start reading. I’m quite excited to see what kind of trouble Stephanie, Lula, Connie, Grandma Mazur, Morelli, and Ranger find themselves in this time.

What’s a Poor Book Lover to Do?

I am in a quandary, and I really don’t know what to do. And before I tell you about my quandary, I will admit that most normal people would not be stressing over this decision the way I am. I suppose that also means that I’m admitting that I’m not normal. So be it. My dilemma? Should I or should I not get a Kindle?

To many, the short and simple answer would be  resounding, “Yes!” I do, after all, absolutely love to read. It’s my absolute favorite pastime. I read every chance I get. To me, there’s nothing better than sitting in the recliner, wrapped in my Snuggie, a Diet Dew within arm’s reach, and reading a good book. And therein lies my problem. I love books, and a Kindle is not a book.

A Kindle is an e-reader – an electronic reading device that will hold 3,500 books. I should be thrilled, right? Except it’s not really holding an actual “book.” I probably have close to 1,500 books in my house. My kids always tell people they live in a library, and I think that’s just great. Not everybody gets to live in a library, and I really feel sorry for those who don’t. I just love books. I love holding a book, touching a book, turning pages in a book, reading a book. There’s something about that experience that, to me, would be lost by holding an e-reader. I may still be reading the same content from an e-reader as from a book, but the experience would be different. And my library would be different.

And, yes, I’m aware of the arguments in favor of Kindles. They are compact. They take up so much less room. They hold 3,500 books. Yes, I could take 3,500 books on vacation and my suitcase would not weigh me down. I would not have to decide which books would go with me and which would stay home. Not only would my luggage be significantly lighter, but I could change my mind easily about what I wanted to read. The thing is, though, I don’t worry too much about the weight of my luggage since I have three strong sons and a husband who usually carry my luggage for me. I don’t have to worry about changing my mind and having nothing to read because I’ll just read what I took with me. Another potential benefit of the Kindle is that books purchased for the Kindle typically cost less than the hardback or paperback version of the book. That’s not really an issue for me because I rarely pay full price for a book anyway. There are few books that I must have as soon as they come out. If there is one, I typically get it for my birthday or for Christmas, so there are only a few I pay for. Most of the books I buy have been purchased from the bargain bin or from Half-Price Books, where I also shop the bargain bin and get quality hardback books for $1. So, it actually seems that purchasing books for the Kindle might be more expensive for me.

In fact, there’s no doubt that it would be more expensive for me. You see, I have some books that I’ve bought that are part of a series. Take James Patterson’s books that feature the Women’s Murder Club or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. I have the Patterson books in hardback and the Evanovich books in paperback. Could I just stop buying those and put them on my Kindle? While most people probably could, I don’t think I could. I’d have to have the complete set on the shelf. So, I’d have the Kindle version and the book-on-the-shelf version too.

I’d also feel like a bit of a traitor if I succumbed to the Kindle, even though there’s a tiny part of me that does think it would be kind of cool to have one. That thought even makes me feel guilty. Even though people who own the Kindle tell me that I would love it, I really agonize over whether that’s true. What about the guilt I would feel about not holding, turning the pages of, and reading an actual book? To most, this is a simple decision. Me, though, I’m really torn.