Jeans Day

Can you ask for a better charity to support?

It was easy to buy my pin this year. I am wearing my jeans with pride.

Deja Vu

I must admit there is a certain joy when you "discover" a new author and realize that they have at least 20 books under their belt for you to read.

However, when you start tracking what you are reading (like I am this year), it makes it pretty obvious what appeals to your reading tastes. It is always sad when you reach the end of an author's canon and you have to wait for them to produce more work! LOL. I am thoroughly enjoying Robinson's books. Great mystery thrillers, with just enough details and great plots. This one was no different.

I called this post "deja vu" since as I was reading the first few chapters of The Summer that Never Was it felt like I had read this story before. I had to flip through a few pages to see if this was right. Then I remembered reading Tana French's book earlier this year, and there is a passing resemblance between these two books. That being said, Robinson's came out first {LOL}. Now French's book doesn't seem as unique in retrospect, and since In the Woods left me with questions, and this one left me will some answers from what I have read in this series and has more books to read... well... I suspect a few more Robinsons' before I pick up another French.

Pink Eye

I can't say I would want a do-over for today, but it could have been a better day.

Looks like Brandon has pink eye (caught from his group daycare) and we were called to pick him up. He is the 6th kid to catch it from his class.

Needless to say, we got Connor checked out as well, and so far so good, he doesn't officially have it yet, but one ear is a little red. *SIGH*

Ken rolled his ankle and is limping, I have my heel pain, and my eyes were crusty too. What a lot we are! All a wee bit off, snuffly, and just not at 100%. This is a great week for it to be a short week.

Work has been a mixed bag - it has had a really interesting vibe lately. I find some parts of my job really rewarding, and some parts have felt like a real grind. I feel like I am getting somewhere, and I feel like I have to second guess myself too. Since I was somewhat called out, I have reflected some, and parts just don't feel all that justified, and for parts, what I observe what else is going on, feel completely unjust. I have felt a shift within myself, what I am willing to do, the lists I am going to make to chart my own progress, and just pausing a little more to try to be more reflective too. I feel like am on solid ground in some aspects, and quicksand in others. I also feel like every time I look up, it is Friday again, and that another week has already slipped by. Time is just flying.

Weaning has gone better than I expected. Overall Connor has been great to put to bed. I cannot wait for my body to adjust, and for my damp chest to a thing of the past. It is a great feeling to have no regrets about breast feeding, and to not feel like looking back. It was a great chapter, and one I am truly glad to be moving on from.

Garden Spells

Every now and then a bit of whimsy is just what is required. We had an amazing weekend getaway... finally. No one got sick, the weather was agreeable, and the sights were awesome. I even got to read a light and fluffy book, that was just perfect for this weekend.

This is what I like about chick-lit. Okay, a little bit of magic happened (something endearing about an apple tree that drops apples at your feet that will reveal the biggest event of your life to you when you eat it, good or bad) between the pages, and in a way, it reminded me a little of a Nora Roberts book in that sense (with the romance, and the easy to connect to characters and the charm), and I truly enjoyed it. Not a heavy read, and it delivered a good, happy ending, which was what I was looking for. I would read more books by this author - this was a delightful book.

So long, good friend.

In the car, heading for the ferry, my dear husband tells me he threw out our old espresso machine. I can't say I was ready for that - I would have been quite happy to put it in the box for that my new machine came in and store it in the shed for a year, or two, or three... you know..

just in case. I guess I had that "look" on my face because he said "what's the point of storing it for someday, you know it leaks out water everywhere and you weren't happy with it" and I came out with a profound, "yeah.. but". You know how it goes. He was right. We don't need to store more electronics that don't work well in our shed, it is already bursting at the seams. I also like our new machine, even if I didn't like it at first.

I claim to be good at change, but really, some times I really am not as good at change as I hope to be. So, I shut up, and didn't call my dad to rescue the old espresso machine out of the garbage. Not bad for $50 (bought it used from a friend who worked at the coffee giant back in 2000).... it made thousands of good coffees, and at the end of the day, served me well. Farewell dear machine... may your successor last half as long... (they really don't make them the way they used to)

Done.

The breastaurant is officially closed.

It closed for a night on Saturday, reopened briefly on Sunday, and closed again last night.

It felt so right. Well, Brandon got 2 years, and Connor got just about 22 months. They should both consider themselves lucky for two totally different reasons. After Brandon, I didn't feel like I was done yet, perhaps some inner awareness that another child was a possibility. Now, I am done. I am so glad to have had two kids, and to have breastfed as long as I did, and I am SO GLAD I finally did it.

It didn't happen how I thought it would - I had visions of Ken putting Connor to bed every night and me hiding out in Brandon's room. The cowards way out, this is what I figured would be the easiest. In the end, I ended up telling Connor he was a big boy, and slowly weaning him off by putting him on a nightly time limit, and on Saturday, I reached that point where it was really easy to just not do it. I sang to him, laid next to him, and stayed until he fell asleep. Then I ran out in to the living room and did a few fist pumps.

D O N E .

Did I mention I am just thrilled about this? For me it isn't about "getting my body back" (okay, maybe a little but more in the sense of not having some one pull down my shirt, or trying to grab me, and then go for a meal) but it just being so the right time. Connor is a big guy, he doesn't need it, and it is time to get comfort from his loved ones in a different way. Time for me to let go too, and move along.

Bedtime is getting easier, and the wake ups in the middle of the night haven't been as bad as I expected. It is a relief. So I didn't take the cowards way out and I dealt with it (my karma I suppose) and faced my fears about weaning. The heart wrenching cries were few, he seems to have handled it well, and life moves on. I will cherish the memories I have of breast feeding, and I am glad I persisted with both. Very rewarding, not the easy thing in the beginning you think it will be, and so very much the right time to move on.

A little of everything

Reading this, I couldn't help but wonder where books like this where when I was doing all my literature courses...(damn dead WASPs... there is something to be said about World literature) for a book in translation, the prose was beautiful. This is a grand book, from beginning to end. It took me weeks to finish this - it really isn't a book that you pick up and read in one or two sittings. At times this is a coming of age novel, sometimes a mystery, at times a historical piece, sometimes it borders on a Greek tragedy, and at times, it is whimsical and fanciful in the language employed.

I quoted the opening passage a few posts back, and there is a thread about books and their stories that permeates this entire book. Have I mentioned how much I enjoyed this book? And not in the usual sense either... about 2/3rs of the way through I kind of did a bit of a groaner for the direction one of the characters ended up taking, but within the context of the book, it does create the Greek tragedy element to the tale, and makes it somewhat more poignant, even if this element was a bit distasteful (I won't give it away just in case you are so inspired to pick up this book).

How to describe in a nutshell what this is about - against the backdrop of WW II and the Spanish Revolution, this is the story about a young boy named Daniel, his widowed father, and their used bookstore. This is also the story of an obscure writer, whose life is ironically entwined with Daniel's and comes to a dramatic head by the climax of the novel. It is partly a coming of age novel, first loves, loss, war, living in an oppressed society, filial love, books, identity, stereotypes and archetypes. Did I mention this book had a bit of everything in it? I don't think I am doing the best job at relating what this book is about, but it is well worth a read. I had the urge to get out a highlighter and mark passages for future reference, and I did stick some bits of toilet paper in too.. but those bits are gone and I am not feeling up to searching through the book to find some worthy quotes to immortalize here.

Once again, I have to say I am glad that my reading habits have taken such a departure from what I was reading - I haven't been bored, and I have a bunch of books cued up that I am really looking forward to reading.