02 Dec What I’m Into: November 2016
Once again it’s time to link up with Leigh Kramer for What I’m Into. It’s been a rough few weeks in my world. I haven’t been blogging. In fact, I haven’t been writing at all. November was a veritable whirlwind and I’m ready to enter the calm of Advent with my whole heart and soul.
The calm of Advent? What am I talking about? It may sound like a contradiction in terms, but I pray we can have peace in our home during this time of waiting for the Messiah. As I mentioned in my last What I’m Into post, November began with my mom’s heart surgery. Then our nation had the most controversial presidential election of my lifetime to date. The following week, my sister went to the emergency room with a herniated disc and had back surgery the same day! By the time she came home from the hospital, it was practically Thanksgiving.
So, my family’s pressing needs, holiday celebrations, the demands of parenting, and nurturing my own soul circumvented my writing plans. Sigh.
To be honest, it seems as though I go through this cycle quite often. I’ll finally get myself chugging along, making progress in my work, and then I’m thrown a curveball and it takes a while to recover. I don’t think I’m unusual (not in the curveball department, anyway) so I’m genuinely curious how other work-at-home writers manage when life gets out of balance. How do youactually succeed when curveballs come out of nowhere?
Maybe you don’t sit around watching Gilmore Girls for three days straight.
Ahem. Let’s move on . . .
What We’ve Been Reading . . .
I noticed in 2015 that my reading slowed down during the second half of the year. Unfortunately, that trend appears to have repeated itself in 2016. I finished listening to the audiobook version of Hotel on the Cornerof Bitter and Sweet. I don’t think Jamie Ford reads my blog, so I’ll just say that I may or may not have banged my head against the wall a few times while I listened to his book. I should have recognized the melodrama in the title, but I’m kind of stupid that way. I hate to admit this, but I thought the hotel was actually on the corner of roads named Bitter and Sweet. I know. I’m a space cadet, right? Don’t tell anyone.The kids and I abandoned Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West. It had been so long since we read it, we just didn’t care what happened anymore. On our Anne Shirley kick, Camilla and I started reading Anne of Avonlea. It will be slow going as we rarely have time for reading just the two of us and I don’t really want to force Adrian to listen to this feminine tale. Perhaps we’ll have time to work on it over Christmas break.
Eva is really into Pat the Bunny now. Whenever I ask her if she wants to read, she says, “Can we read the Bunny Book?” For a while, it was “Can we read the book about Polly and Judy?” I hated to disillusion her, but I had to explain that it was “Paul” not “Polly” and that Paul is a boy. She was understandably disappointed, but continues to be a loyal fan of the book. Both big kids are listening to me read The Silver Chair. How I’ve missed you, Clive Staples Lewis (better known as Jack)! By the way, when I was a teenager I named my horse C.S. Lewis. His nickname was Jack, too. Anyway . . .
The human C.S. Lewis was a brilliant author! I love how he works little nuggets of everyday truth into his novels. Take this one, for example: “It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed; especially if you are lucky enough to have a fire in your room. Jill felt she couldn’t even start undressing unless she sat down in front of the fire for a bit first. And once she had sat down, she didn’t want to get up again.” Really! Even in 1953!? Today, of course, it’s Netflix, not the fireplace. Same concept, though.
What I’ve Been Watching . . .
Nice segue, right? Todd and I are completely obsessed with Lost. I could binge watch this, but I won’t watch it without him, so that does place some limits on my addiction. Limits are good.
And the aforementioned Gilmore Girls. Years ago, when the show was originally playing on The WB, I picked it up about midway through Season Two and became a devoted fan until the end. Or maybe I got mad at Lorelei and skipped a lot of Season Seven. There are some gaps in my memory of the final season. Earlier this year, I started watching the series from the beginning on Netflix and quickly got annoyed with the Girls. Then Todd was out of town for a week this month. I couldn’t watch Lostwithout him, so I started Gilmore Girlsagain and found that I loved it! Added bonus, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was coming out the day after Thanksgiving. I was psyched! And I needed to nurture my soul. So I watched a lot of Gilmore Girls Thanksgiving week. I didn’t get through the whole series, but I caught myself up on the major points. Sunday evening, my sisters came over and we watched the first two episodes of A Year in the Life! I’m really not sure how we stopped after two. We were just too tired to keep going. I guess we’re old and we need our sleep. But it was fun! And I’ve resisted the urge to watch the final two episodes hoping we will get together again soon! It’s more fun to watch with food and company.  |
| Photo Credit: April Olivia Roskos |
A few of our favorite moments in November . . .
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| Western Day at ACA! |
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| Grampy’s 81st Birthday! |
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| The First Snowman! |
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Emma Hughes
Posted at 00:18h, 03 DecemberSo hard that you had a difficult month 🙁 I find that life goes in those patterns too, when something bad hits, it all seems to hit at once 🙁 Hope your mum and sister are recovering well and life slows down for you as we approach Christmas! I think I'll avoid the Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet if it is too melodramatic – I heard about it on What Should I Read Next but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. I'm part way through the Gilmore Girls revival season and enjoying parts of it and not others, maybe it depends what mood you are in at the time? Anyway, great as always to read your recaps!