Thursday, May 9, 2013

It's a post about a book

This post is going to be really stupid, especially if you are unfamiliar with the books. Sorry. I've been reading these books, The Green Rider series. They are good, but they are unsettling. Let me tell you why. I have been thinking about this since last summer, and it just bugs me more and more day by day, and I have no one to bounce it off, so off into the interwebs it goes. Spoilers, for sure.

The book is a fantasy, with magic and what not, and kings and fair maidens and horses and important messages. And fighting. And near-rapes. (I don't think I'll let my kids read the books 'til they're married.) What is unsettling is how much the author, Kristen Britain, pulls from New Age stuff like the nine dimensions, entities, astral projections, magic circles, clairvoyance, telepathy, Reiki, avatars, near-death experiences and basically a lot of that crystal mumbo jumbo, and infuses it into her medieval world. The whole D'yer wall was a big giveaway to some of the lower dimensions. I'm not too surprised that she pulled a (successful) stunt like that. Maybe I'm even jealous I didn't think of it first.

I think the thing that is bugging me the most is the love story and where it is heading. Curse my puritanical upbringing! (And the love story is always what sucks you in!!) There is, of course, an impasse with the two characters, during the which her father's love-life is examined and found less-than-par. It doesn't sit well with the protagonist that her dad is visiting houses of ill-repute, and she doesn't seem to have made peace with it yet, but you know she will, and it is opening the doors to a less-than-savory relationship with the man she loves in future books. So I don't appreciate that the author is already setting up a way that the main character is going to justify her indiscretion already. It is ever-so-subtle, but I think that undoubtedly it will happen. Pooh pooh pooh. Just move on and find someone new, girl.

These books, however, have still weaseled their way into my brain, and the author is so slow in getting the next ones out. That is also infuriating. I remember searching for any updates on book 5, and there was nothing. But tonight, there were updates. And I read them. And now I want to read the rest of the series that has yet to be written. So now I'm thinking about it AAALLLL over again and how it is about to be ruined. And it's sad that I'm getting all these New Age references, I barely know about it and don't actively seek the knowledge out, just picked up tidbits here and there, I can tell that the author obviously dabbles in the New Age field. Not my cup of tea, but it makes for some very interesting reading. The way she finished the fourth book was so darn interesting to me, the threads of fate in a masquerade mask, and I will say no more. That actually made me think more of string theory. More physics references, please! I have too many mixed emotions about this. I want to read it but I don't want to read it. Can you feel me?

That's all I got.

Except for ... Include More Masquerade Scenes, please!, Ms. Britain, if you are listening out there.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Christmas 2012 Highlights, 2013 Goals

Hi everyone,

I feel like this is redundant from Facebook, and I prefer Facebook, I'm more visual, but I know some of you love the Blogger. And I was thinking about why. It definitely is more like reading a story, a short story. And I know a lot of you out there are readers and love reading all your cutting-edge books. So I guess you just like to know a bit more of the back story of all the photos or what's going on. I don't know, it's an idea. So here's some blogging for ya! And I realized I didn't have any pics of Adeline up since September or earlier, so that made me kind of sad. I've got tons of pictures of her on Facebook, but not enough on my blog!

Here's Adeline! She makes me smile. She was actually sassing me and backtalking me - in her sweet way - when this photo was being taken, but HEY! Sure looks like a smile to me. Before she was frowning and being grumpy, and I was saying, Come on, smile! And she said, No, YOU smile. That silly girl.


Adam and I got some lovely presents, two of them being a personalized pi pie plate and a wheat grinder. We've already used it twice to bake fresh bread from red wheat. Here we are looking good on Christmas day and holding the plate.


Close-up of pi plate, from Etsy!


Did I tell you that we did the two days of Christmas thing? We actually opened presents on Christmas eve day in the morning, just like it was Christmas. Adeline had fun, she opened about half of her presents. Then she did a TON of finger painting. She was loving it so much. I am going to let her paint lots and lots! Even though it makes a big mess! Adam liked this two-day-Christmas idea because he wanted to maximize his time playing with Adeline, and he got Christmas Eve day off and Christmas Day off, but then he went back to work after that, until we flew out to visit the Rowley inlaws.

There's that happy girl finger painting. We also got the Pinkalicious Purplelicious Silverlicious Goldelicious books from Grandma Margie for Adeline, and the Purple one is all about painting, so it meant a lot to Adeline and she especially liked using a paint brush to paint, like the girl in the book.


I can't believe it, Adeline is about 2 and 3/4 years old. I'm going to have to start getting birthday ideas ready and figure all that out. We might have to move soon. We are renting through a company, but the homeowner let the company rent the house, and now the homeowner is in foreclosure. I don't know what that means for us exactly, except that when our contract is up we will probably have to move so that foreclosure proceedings can occur. Who knows? And depending if/where Adam gets a job, we might be moving cross-country right around the time of Adeline's bday. Oh well, there's always Chuck E Cheese, right? ;-)

More cute pictures of cuteness. Some tea party fun times!



I love this goofy scrunchy Renee Zellweger type smile, haha!


Adeline's being a daredevil right now. She's jumping from the couch arm rest onto the couch, or onto the lazyboy. I hope we won't have to go to the hospital soon. We did a big shopping day at Target, got some freezer pizzas on sale and then with a coupon, thanks Swagbucks and Target.com. Sometimes I end up with double coupons, one of them manufacturer, and the other through Target, so I can end up with some pretty good savings!

That's about it. My church calling keeps me busy, I am the choir director, and there is always music to plan and what not. And I also like arranging some pieces, which is fun and increases my abilities but ends up turning into a huge time suck. Oh well. I hurt my back again today. It hurts to breathe. We're just watching Scooby Doo. I am finally getting over this cold that I picked up right when we were done visiting the Rowleys. That kind of stunk. I've been pretty sick for awhile. Adam stayed home last Wednesday and made me yummy soup and things were good. He got sick too and Adeline's been sick. I hate it when those coughs hang on and you're technically "well" but still coughing. Nights are still rough, but just for Adam and I, Adeline has been sleeping like a champ. We are both very grateful. It was pretty bad before, for over a year. Boo.

Oh yeah, GOALS!:

1) Develop the talent of organization. This one has been a long time coming. I kind of neglected the house to get the music ready for the ward Christmas program. I arranged a few pieces and basically it took a ton of time, and there was a lot of rehearsals involved and I only really stayed on top of the dishes and the laundry. Now I'm trying to beat down the clutter and really think of it as developing another talent and not the true drudgery it is. So far so good! I've organized a ton of the closets, rearranged Adeline's room in a very visually pleasing way, and beat down a lot of the clutter. I am hosting a baby shower soon so hopefully it will look marvelous in here!

2) Lose a little more weight. I have already been doing well in this department from the previous year. I actually didn't think I could lose 20 pounds or so, but I did. I hope to lose another ten, maybe 15. I would be close back to college weight. That would be awesome. I hope that when my husband has an income, that maybe I could afford a gym membership with daycare, that's what a lot of the good looking, in shape ladies in my ward do. I could totally get into better shape if I had 45 min each day to go pump some iron and run on the treadmill and Adeline could be happily playing with the toys in the kids area. It would be great! With winter here, I can't get outside much. It's actually snowing a lot right now, a lot for Albuquerque, it's actually sticking on the ground and the nearby Petroglyphs hills are blanketed in snow. Exciting!

I don't know if I have more goals than that. Just a few here and there, some of them I just like to keep to myself.

That's all. If I think of anymore, I'll probably post it to Facebook. Haha!
-Danelle

P.S. It's me, looking hot at B.J.'s although we didn't end up eating there and went to Scarpas and it was SO GOOD!








Tasted even better with a BOGO coupon! Yeah!