Sundays with Gage- Reveling in the The Game

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I grew up about 45 minutes from Columbus and have a dad who is a Scarlet & Gray fanatic it is no surprise that I ended up spending 4+ years on campus becoming an OSU alum.  Football is king (although we go through eras of basketball excellence) and The Game, the one against that team up North, is important, like really, really important.  Lots of trash talk and alcohol consumed (at least I’ve heard ;)) for the rivalry.

Our esteemed coach, Jim Tressel, messed up and let the team and university down a few years ago, so he was fired and our Buckeyes can’t play in any bowl games this year.  That made this game their national championship, a win would cap an undefeated season.  The excitement was high and the pressure was on.

Gage had a hard time containing his energy.  Took a nap for the ages and woke up with a minute to go 🙂  We’ll have to work on his game watching abilities next year.  We won 26-21.  Go Bucks!

Giving Thanks

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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  The idea of just appreciating what you have and being with people you love, is one we should always strive for not just one November day a year.  I do think the pigging out on fattening foods should be kept to one (or a dozen) special day, but I think gorging on books should be encouraged year round.

I’ve been blogging since the beginning of 2008 and I’ve seen blogger friends come and go, but after all these years I feel a special love for those who are still around and part of my online family.  Comments, emails, cards, and gifts all make this blogger happy and I thank you all for being a part of my life.  Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I stayed up an extra hour tonight and for the first time in 2 years my Google Reader has no new posts!  Another thing to be thankful for 🙂

Gage showing off some of his fall artwork.  Isn’t he talented?

Road Trip Quiz – guessing closed

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It’s Thanksgiving week and many of us will be heading somewhere else to celebrate and since it’s been a while since I’ve done a movie quiz, here it is.  See if you can figure out these road trip movies.

You have until noon Sunday to submit your answers as a comment.  Comment will be hidden until I post the answers.  No Googling! The person with the most points this round will win a B&N gift card (total $ based on # of total participants, so please play) and a randomly selected participant will win a fun prize from me.

Answers to last week’s Bite Me quiz here. Leaderboard here.

1. One of my all-time favorite movies starring Steve Martin and John Candy takes place as they try to get home for Thanksgiving.  Planes, Trains & Automobiles

2.”The first relevant film about rock and roll and the music industry, the first film that lets you in on the secret.”  –Robert Wilonsky, Dallas Observer  Almost Famous

3. Charlie: Listen… Ray, I don’t know if I’m gonna have a chance to talk to you again. Because you see, these… Dr. Bruner really likes you a lot, and he’s probably gonna take you back. You know?
Raymond: Yeah.
Charlie: What I said about being on the road with you I meant. Connecting. I like having you for my brother.
Raymond: I’m an excellent driver.
Charlie: [smiling] Yes, you are. I like having you for my big brother.
Raymond: C-H-A-R-L-I-E. C-H-A-R-L-I-E. Main man.

Rain Man

4.  Vacation

5. “Sarandon and Davis give superb, wonderfully interactive performances: funky, fierce, funny and poignant.” –Newsweek  Thelma & Louise

6. This 1934 classic starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert won 5 Academy Awards and is a must see for lovers of screwball comedies.  It Happened One Night

7. Traveling across the country to lose your virginity seemed desparate to me, but it worked out in the end for John Cusack in this 1985 romantic comedy.  The Sure Thing

8.  (sigh)  Lord of the Rings trilogy

9. “A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.” –IMDb.com  Little Miss Sunshine

10. “Someday it was inevitable that a great film would come along, utilizing the motorcycle genre, the same way the great Westerns suddenly made everyone realize they were a legitimate American art form.”  –Roger Ebert   Easy Rider

Laws of Love by Lisa White

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The Laws of LoveFinished 10-18-12, romance, pub. 2012

I like to read debut novels.  It’s like you’re getting the scoop on a really great sale or gossip about who’s going to win Project Runway.  I stopped accepting debut books a few years ago because there were just so many seasoned writers I wanted to read but when Trish offered a romance for the TLC tour (other tour stops here) I said yes.  I don’t read enough romances.

Because having it all does not necessarily mean having it all at once…

In a small, Virginia town where fly-fishing is the favorite pastime and Hampton Steel is essentially the only employer, Associate General Counsel Livi Miller believes she has reached the top rung of Hampton Steel’s corporate ladder. With her alcoholic boss retiring soon, Livi is the presumptive heir to Hampton Steel’s general counsel position. However, in the midst of proving herself promotion-worthy, Livi’s high school sweetheart, Jake Cooper, returns from Iraq and causes long-lost butterflies to alight in Livi’s emotionally charged stomach. The resulting loss of her promotion to slimy newcomer Edward Winston combines with her rekindled feelings for Jake to place Livi on track to choose between her career and her heart.

If she chooses Hampton Steel, she saves her hometown. If she chooses Jake, she saves her butterflies as well as herself.

I liked Livi.  She was a driven career woman, but one who also lamented not having it all.  She wanted a relationship and a family of her own but was was married to her job.  And when things got funky at work she wasn’t afraid to get right into the middle of it, even though there was real danger.  I was happy to see that Jake came back and offered her a chance at personal happiness.  I would have liked a little more about Jake. He came back from serving in Iraq with his best friend dead and I wanted to know more about his transition.

This is a short read, which is always a plus for me, but maybe in this case it was a bit too short.  There were a few storylines that were brought up and then just dropped (like when Jake attends church) and the whole reunited with your first and only love was a good story that happened so quick.  I wanted more.  I actually felt like I spent more time with Livi at work and all the craziness there, which I liked, but it felt like less of a romance because of it.  That could be good or bad depending on if you like romances 🙂

This was a solid debut.

Thanks to Trish at TLC for putting the tour together.

Going to college with Gage

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My cousin’s daughter, Claire, started her first year of college at Baldwin Wallace University, only 30 minutes away from us.  This is exciting since it’s been a long time since we’ve lived that close to any family.  We finally made the drive over on Friday to visit.  It’s a great campus with lots of beautiful buildings and homes and in true toddler fashion Gage’s favorite part was riding the elevator.  He wasn’t interested in the steps or much else when he caught sight of the elevator. After more than a few rides we headed home.

A fun trip was had by all.

A health update- Last Sunday we took Gage back to the hospital and he received more steroids for his croup.  On Monday, I was ready to throw in the mother towel and check myself into mommy rehab.  Come to find out that ‘roid rage can happen to toddlers too.  Who knew?  Thankfully, by Tuesday he was more himself and life got back to normal until early Friday when I started to feel sick.  I did what any tired and worn out woman does when she can, I called my mom.  She’s here helping out while I get some extra sleep and down time.  I really do have the best mom 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

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Where'd You Go, BernadetteWhere’d You Go, Bernadette, rating 2.75/5, fiction, 336 pages, pub, 2012

I accepted this for review because I enjoyed Semple’s first book and she was gracious enough to let me ask her a few questions a few years ago here on the blog.  I read nothing but positive things about it from other bloggers and it’s even up for a best book award at Goodreads.  So, it was bound to be a disappointment, right? Unfortunately, it was.

Bernadette, a reknowned architect, has been stuck in suburban Seattle hell for almost 20 years and her husband mentally checked out of her wacky ways way back as he focused on his very important job at Microsoft.  Bee, their daughter, never felt neglected or unloved so the parents were successful in raising a daughter with a bright future.  The story focuses on where Bernadette had disappeared to, but this doesn’t really happen until the last third of the book.

It was an epistolary novel, mostly.  There were chunks thrown in from Bee, especially at the end, that broke up that narrative in a less than positive way.  I liked the emails, police reports, newspaper articles, FBI reports, text messages that made up the story of Bernadette’s disappearance, but until the very last few pages I never cared about Bernadette or her husband Elgin. At the very end I appreciated Bernadette’s journey, but getting there was a journey I wouldn’t take again. Bee, was a sympathetic character but not one I connected with.

There were exotic locales, Antarctica playing a big role in most of the book, and plenty of laughable/hateful characters depicting the wealthy suburbanites I am all too familiar with so I think this could be a great movie.  The characters often felt like caricatures that could definitely work on the big screen, but for me I found them a bit too whiny on the page.

I was hoping to be entertained, but I grew bored early on and didn’t care at all until the crazy end.  What happened to Bernadette?  It’s a doozy.  I know I’m in the minority for not really liking this one and I’m okay with that.

I want to thank Anna at Little Brown for sending me a copy of the book 🙂

Bite Me Quiz – guessing closed

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With the final installment of the Twilight due in theaters this weekend I thought we’d do a vampire check.  See how many you can match up. I’ve only read two of these myself, but was surprised at how many I knew.  Happy Guessing!

You have until noon Sunday to submit your answers as a comment.  Comment will be hidden until I post the answers.  No Googling! The person with the most points this round will win a B&N gift card (total $ based on # of total participants, so please play) and a randomly selected participant will win a fun prize from me.

Answers to last week’s Odd Jobs quiz here. Leaderboard here.

1. Edward Cullen  H. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

2. Wrath  A. Dark Lover by JR Ward

3. Lestat  G. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

4. Bill Compton  F. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

5. Jody Stroud  I. Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

6. Count Dracula  C. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

7. Matthew Clairmont   J. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

8. Lucien Antonescu  D. Insatiable by Meg Cabot

9. Martin Kowalski  E. Vamped by David Sosnowski

10. Kurt Barlow  B.Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

Sundays with Gage – croupy week

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Jason started feeling sick on Tuesday afternoon and even came home early from work on Thursday (gasp!).  So, it shouldn’t have been surprising when Gage got sick too.  But I was surprised that we made a trip to the ER at 1 am on Friday morning.  Jason stayed home, too sick to be any good, and Gage and I headed to the hospital to see if they could help him breathe easier.  After some drugs, a breathing treatment and a croup diagnosis we headed home at 3:30 am.

Jason’s getting better and Gage is holding steady.  He’s barely eating and refuses nose drops and Tylenol.  He isn’t sleeping well and still wakes up with a seal cough.  I took this photo before bed last night, does he look tired or what?  Any positive energy you can send his way…

Stay healthy friends.

Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina

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Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to FiveBrain Rules for Baby:How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five.  Finished 11-7-12, rating 3.5/5, parenting, 277 pages, pub. 2010

I bought quite a few parenting books after Gage was born and read none of them.  I remember looking through this one at the time and thinking that it made me feel like I’d already blown my chance to make Gage smart and happy since the whole first section is what you should be doing during pregnancy!  But then I saw this gushing post from Trish and decided to pick it up and try again.

Trish felt that every prospective mother should have a copy of this placed in her hands and I definitely think that every parent should read the section on relationships.  I think most couples are unprepared for what a baby does to a relationship in those first years.  It’s not all gazing at your baby and husband with pure joy on your face and in your heart.  Let me include a few LOL passages from mothers…

“I sometimes fantasize about getting divorced just so I can have every other weekend off.”

“Sometimes when I’m holding my beautiful baby in my arms and we’re gazing lovingly at each other, I secretly wish that she would fall asleep so that I could check my email.”

I think this section about relationships should be required reading.  I’ve asked Jason to read it at this late date because I think there are some useful tools for us.  And we need it since according to Medina, “More than 80% of couples experience a huge drop in marital quality during the transition to parenthood.”  He goes on to say that satisfaction doesn’t recover until the kids leave the house!

There were many parts of the book I liked and others that I didn’t find helpful at all.  I think there are great tips for any new parent but I also felt that he included too many studies that favored a one-way-to-parent rationale.  There were too many times that Medina made me feel like I’d already failed Gage.  There is just too much pressure.  That being said I take a lot away from it.  It’s given me that extra pause before I lose my patience 😉  It’s also reinforced some of the things I already do with Gage and and given me some suggestions for everyday interaction.

Trish head-over-heels loved the audio, so please head over there for a fresh perspective.  One of the sections I liked a lot was about happiness and I’ll conclude with a quote from a group that studied happiness over decades…

“The only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

Thank you, blogging buddies, for adding to my happiness 🙂  I do think that every parent could benefit from his great website that’s full of information from the book, Brain Rules for Baby.

Odd Jobs Quiz – guessing closed

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We all know that being President is a great responsibility and, really, who would want the job, even with the power rush?  Let’s see if you can match these other unusual jobs with their character and book.

You have until noon Sunday to submit your answers as a comment.  Comment will be hidden until I post the answers.  No Googling! The person with the most points this round will win a B&N gift card (total $ based on # of total participants, so please play) and a randomly selected participant will win a fun prize from me.

Leaderboard here.

August Boatwright (The Secret Life of Bees) Beekeeper

 Brett Kavanaugh ((The Missing Ink) Tattoo artist

 Bailey Weggins (If Looks Could Kill) Magazine crime writer

Roxane  Coss (Bel Canto) Opera singer

Deanna Wolfe (Prodigal Summer) Wildlife biologist

Cinder (Cinder) Cyborg mechanic

Renee Michel (Elegance of the Hedgehog) Concierge

Vanessa Michael Munroe (Informationist) Informationist

Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones’s Diary) Intrepid TV reporter

Della Carmichael (Death Takes the Cake) Cable TV chef