Day Three Hundred and Seventeen

November 14th, 2008

Finished To the Lighthouse. Started The Dain Curse, The Glass Key and Selected Stories by Dashiell Hammet and finished the stories. I feel as though I’m making progress and that is good. Still not a Virginia Woolf fan. The woman had style but really, what did she say that was important? Meaningful? Not to dismiss the woman’s life or anything, but I often think that she had a tortured existence and death for the sake of a few lightweight style pieces. Yes, I know, a Women’s Studies center is coming to assassinate me. I shall invoke the aid of St. Augustine.

If you’ve never had the chance, make brownies with a half cup of peanut butter chips in them. My husband raves.

Any thoughts on unionizing for the 30 hour work week? No? We have an economic crisis? What are you saying!?

Day Three Hundred and Six

November 3rd, 2008

Of course Sunday was a busy day as it usually is. This week I did all my weekly baking Sunday afternoon. This meant zucchini bread, amish friendship bread and a pot of minestrone soup, not to mention dinner, all going at once. That means that Monday will be fairly laid back but because of the time change I’ll be up at six instead of seven (children don’t adjust so easily) so I guess that’s more hours to fill instead of more hours to relax. I’m already tired out.

Unusually enough Jared asked for some time to himself this weekend. I ask for time almost every day but somehow he is almost always doing fine. He is definitley not one of those guys that needs a “man cave” or any other cheesy metaphor for personal space and I deeply appreciate this. It is probably partly because he has a job that he enjoys so much and that is so fulfilling and also because it means long stretches of time when he is working by himself, but I know that it is mostly because he is so giving and so kind and so generous with his energy. I really appreciate this about him since it makes him really easy to live with and makes my life so much less draining than it could be. So, I guess what I’m saying is I’m grateful for the dynamic of our marriage.

Hallmark moment over…

I didn’t read very much yesterday. I guess knowing that I am caught up is bad for my motivation. When you run a race it is always good to have a little extra energy at the end so you can “kick” and pass anyone you find in front of you. So I’ve got to find some kick soon so I can pass Thomas Mann (I so don’t want to pick up The Magic Mountain again!) and Toni Morrison (I’m sick, sick, sick, of Beloved) and the any other dragging books still waiting for me. Thanks to Richard, I’m now really looking forward to the Rabbit books instead of being scared of it. Didion isn’t done yet but now I’m getting to my living memory. It is arranged chronologically and now she is writing about nineties politics so even though I’m not interested per se, I’m at least familiar with the subject matter.

Day Two Hundred and Eighty Two

October 9th, 2008

I finished Midnight’s Children and started Aesop’s Fables. Jared went out last night to visit with an old friend so I should have been super productive all evening (after the boys went to bed of course). Instead I read a little, surfed the internet, and then fell asleep. For some reason I have a really hard time falling asleep at bedtime. In the middle of the day I could be out like the proverbial light and at 9:45 I just dropped right off. But Jared came home and woke me up and then after that I couldn’t get to sleep for the longest time. Very frustrating. It is also now too cold to walk and read. My hand feels like it’s going to simply drop off after about five minutes. Sad.

Midnight’s Children was a wonderful, rich and very sad book. It seems to speak with the very voice of India (not that I’m an expert) and that voice is complex, strange and, yes, very sad. Every time some international crisis appears on the news and politicians start pontificating about how we should step in and deal with it I think about how that country has a deep history that it is highly unlikely we even know much less understand. The ambiguities of a disordered, quickly changing history are so much more difficult than a briefing on “the situation in Georgia” or Israel, or Iraq…

Day Two Hundred and Seventy Six

October 3rd, 2008

I’m still working my way through The House of Spirits and find the book to be quite enjoyable. The narrative voice keeps playing games with me and I’m pretty easy to play games on. I tend to trust my narrator implicitly and when I was in early lit classes I found the concept of the “unreliable narrator” hard to handle. I’m not naturally skeptical of books. I’m not entirely credulous but I generally assume the narrator must know what their talking about…after all they wrote the book right? Anyway Isabel Allende switches up the voice in Spirits from a third person to first person and it’s kind of hard to tell if the third person is the same as the first person…It seems like the third person is omniscient but there is an element in the book that would make it conceivable that the first person narrator could know things that they wouldn’t naturally know. Anyway it’s been great whether I’m picking up on all the subtleties or not.

I went and played volleyball last night at some old friends house. I really enjoyed getting out of the house but revisiting one of my old “when I was single” activities was a great reminder of how much I love being married. It never matters how much I enjoyed an activity the whole experience is colored by much I enjoy being around the people I’m doing it with. And it doesn’t seem to matter who I’m hanging out with or how much fun the thing I’m doing is, I’d really rather be with Jared. Even just sitting on the couch with him is more enjoyable to me than just about anything else with anyone else. I really like that.

Day Two Hundred and Seventy

September 27th, 2008

I’m almost done with Updike’s book (The Complete Henry Bech) and it’s taken a weird turn. I’m still somewhat impressed by the book but if these last 40 pages keep up with this new turn, I’m not sure how I’ll take it. It’s like Updike just thought “Hmmm…I haven’t ever written a murder mystery…I guess Bech is the only character I have going that could pull it off…let’s see how that goes.”

Luc came down with Alex’s fever but like him seems to be over it in one day. He’s still a little warm but not bad. I worry about these mysterious illnesses (Alex has had two others) that seem to come from nowhere and then head back there after making my babies sick. I want a name to pin on the nasty germs that make them fussy and uncomfortable and sad. Unfortunately Luc started feeling sick and was feverish while we were over at our friends house having dinner. We went ahead and left right away because he was so inconsolable but it is tough to get out so little and have to leave so quickly. Alex was having fun playing but came home and went to bed pretty easily. I got lots of reading in and then Jared and I went to bed at ten like really old people…

Oh, and Jared came home from work with a gorgeous rose for me just to say “I love you”. Whatever your reasons, this is NEVER a bad idea. :)

Days Two Hundred and Fifty Six and Two Hundred and Fifty Seven

September 13th, 2008

Moby Dick Herman Melville Page: 640 Finished

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Page: 60

I’m a squealing little girl. All twitchy and jumpy. Our campsite was on the other side of the plagues of Egypt. No, there wasn’t a river of blood and Jared didn’t die but there were about a million little frogs. A million little frogs underfoot. I don’t know how many I killed but since I was wearing sandals it was almost as hard on me as on them. Blech. Eww. Gross. But I survived.

After one false start, two mistaken detours and a long dusty hike we camped. Lake Louis was beautiful of course. I read all evening until the sun was gone and then Jared and I made Mac & Cheese and drank a bottle of wine. The night was peaceful, if a little cold and the ground was very hard (it always is you know). The morning was chilly but pleasant and after an oatmeal breakfast we sat on some sun warmed rocks and relaxed and read. Both morning and evening Jared took long naps while I read like crazy and I’m proud to say I finished Moby Dick in less than 24 hours. I think that’s the best way to read him; quickly and straight through. I loved the book, loved the style and loved reading for so long. Of course backpacking is always uncomfortable so I’m very grateful for my bed right now! Also I missed the boys and was very happy to have them back this evening. It wasn’t as hard to be away from them as I thought. Leaving Friday afternoon was a wrench and I was impatient to see them but I wasn’t too miserable without them. It helped that we were in unfamiliar surroundings I think. While on the trip I had a new idea for a blog. It is really exciting and I can’t wait to get started on it. Stay tuned.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure my dad doesn’t read this but I know mom does, so please pass it on. Thanks for the obsessive tarp folding skills. You never know when they might come in handy.

Day Two Hundred and Fifty Three

September 9th, 2008

Hello all, this is Jared, Mandi’s husband, and father of her two beautiful children you have seen so many pictures of.  Mandi is desperately trying to get her page count in this evening after a few days of disappointing reading numbers.  So she has, for some reason, asked me to fill her shoes for the night and entertain her minions with my insightful literary knowledge and witty banter.  Then we both burst out laughing at the absurdity of that previous comment and she told me to go and write a blog entry anyway.  I will do my best not to bore you but I wanted to talk about my journey into the literary world via my wife and the used bookstore we used to own (sigh…) and how my appetite for books has changed over the years.

Where to begin?  Well, I suppose at the beginning.  In my opinion I have always had a pretty good appetite for books, something my mother instilled in me as a child, which never left as I grew older.  Plus, lets face it, if you are a male between the ages of 15 and 30 and you have read more than one book a year, you would be ahead of roughly 95% of your fellow friends who are to engrossed with the latest version of Call of Duty or Halo to worry about reading a book.  While I have never been an incredibly fast reader, or always had much free time to read, I never forget how enjoyable it is to curl up in a chair with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, and lose yourself in a good book.

Speaking of good books, that is the focus of this entry tonight; how my reading choices have changed in the past year and why.  I am a guy, shocking to many of you I know, and in keeping with that fact I love to read books dealing with anything related to ships, shipwrecks, sailing, survival, whaling, war, exploration, conquest, battles, adventure, espionage, discovery, etc.  I have read dozens of books on shipwrecks and whaling disasters and battles throughout history and without any outside forces acting on me I would more than likely have stayed in those genres until I died.  Thankfully for me, I met my wife, the lover of classical literature and history and despiser of modern literature.  Between being married to her for the past 3.5 years, and owning a used bookstore for three years, my literary tastes have changed considerably.  Notice how I didn’t mention fiction in the list above.  That’s because I hardly ever read fiction.  Why waste time on character development when I could be captivated almost immediately with a larger than life survival tale?  Well, Mandi’s love for fiction has won me over and I am beginning to sprinkle fiction into my normal reading rotation.

Speaking of reading rotation, I have forever changed the way I read and what I read.  Before, like many people I assume, I would pick up a book that looked interesting (say one about the Founding Fathers), read it for a few weeks, slowly lose interest, pick up a new book about a shipwreck, love it, read it in a week, and loathe the fact that I still hadn’t finished the book about the Founding Fathers, and thus amass an impressive collection of partially read books.  It frustrated me so much that I decided that something must be done.

I broke my reading into four categories: Religious Works, Personal Growth, Fiction, and Jared’s Favorites.  I compiled a list of about four books in each category, to begin with, and must read the first book in each category before I am allowed to begin the second book in any other category.  Thereby preventing myself from reading one fiction books, one religious work, and ten survival books.  So, beginning two weeks ago, I put this new fangled reading list into action.

My current reading list looks like this:

Religious Works: Confessions by Augustine, Imitation of Christ by A’Kempis, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Personal Growth: Inquisition by Edward Peters, Future Men by Doug Wilson, The Prince by Machiavelli

Fiction: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Brave New World by Huxley, One Day in the Life of Ivan… by some Russian Author

Jared’s FavoritesStrong Men Armed (WW2), The Land That Never Was by David Sinclair, Aku Aku by Thor Heyerdahl

Etc…Etc…Etc…You get the idea.  I am now reading fiction books I would never have chosen to read on my own, such as Jane Austen, and am reading books, such as Meditations or Inquisition, that will help make me a more well rounded person, but that would usually have gotten overshadowed by the books in Jared’s Favorites.

That should be enough for tonight.  The lesson we should all take home is, expand your reading base and encourage others to do the same.

Day Two Hundred and Fifty Two

September 8th, 2008

Farewell, My Lovely & The High Window by Raymond Chandler Page: 500

As expected I had a busy day today. I’ll come back and edit the post later tonight when I finish reading but I wanted to put today’s photos up…especially the tat ones!

Apples on the tree.

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Despite the plethora on the tree this is all we could reach. Ladders would help, especially when your assistants are an infant, a one-year-old and the world’s shortest Quinn.

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Hopefully we’ll have applesauce tomorrow!

Now you wouldn’t believe it to look at him but this gorgeous, smiley little boy just had his shots.

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We walked from home to the doctor’s office (2 miles or so) and he slept most of the way there and back. He is healthy as can be, was a tough guy through the shots and seems to be pretty happy now.

Here is my ring tattoo. Unfortunately it’s kind of hard to get a good shot. It is really fresh (just finished less than an hour ago) and so is a little shiny from the seepage. It is a J and an M worked together and joined with a simple swirled band.

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Day Two Hundred and Thirty Seven

August 24th, 2008

I’m going to watch a movie with my husband instead of blogging tonight.

Comment on THAT!

Day Two Hundred and Nineteen

August 7th, 2008

The Sword of Honour Trilogy Page: 313

I didn’t get many pages read but I did have a very productive day yesterday. Alex and Luc and I ran a couple of errands in the early morning on the bike and then came home and cleaned out our new car. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on here before but we got another car. FOR FREE. It’s kinda funny having decided to do without one and then end up with an extra. But this is how it went: we decided to sell the Element, listed it on Craigslist and some people came and looked at it. they were really nice and Alex turned on the charm and even thought they decided not to get it they offered us their 1993 Toyota 4Runner…for free. We couldn’t resist. Jared used to have a 1994 4Runner and loved it. Unfortunately the engine seized up one fine morning and we were left with a pretty cool looking, useless block of metal. Jared stole my car because he worked in Nampa and I rode my bike because I had the bookstore up on Emerald a few miles away. He has missed his 4Runner ever since. So now we have one, only a year older and kinda dented (it was rear-ended). It did come with about a decade’s worth of free dog hair all over it (I’m not complaining) so Alex played around in it while I used the handyman’s secret weapon, a hand vacuum, gallons of hot water and some Windex to turn it into a family car. Alex, Luc and I all needed showers after that so we took them, they took naps, I read and then Jared came home and asked for some help with J. Alexander stuff. While he cleaned the kitchen I wrote some text for an advertising brochure he’s putting together and drafted a letter and a resume for him. Then we headed off to David and MB’s for dinner which was delicious…especially the Root Beer floats!

I’m highly recommending Evelyn Waugh’s trilogy for those who enjoy military novels, TeeVee shows, and movies. It is mildly but affectionately satiric and very interesting. I like.

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About The Site

200 books in 2008. Selected from Everyman's Library. Reading while caring for a toddler and a new baby and running a small business. With daily blog posts chronicling the attempt. Yeah, I'm nuts.