Project Me (6) - Atonnement spoilers.

WOW!  My last project me post was 10.04.10 that was just about a month ago.   So to try to recap.  The book I read from the 1001 list took me all month.  Part 1 was really hard to get into.  But, Angie liked the book - I have mentioned she's really smart right?  It was literally over half the book!  Once  again an over indulged spoiled little girl is the main character.  Her naivete/fantasy/assumptions change her sister,  her cousin, her father's protege and her brother's friends lives and destinies.   Part 2 was seen through the eyes of a soldier retreating across France, wounded with a fever and only partially lucid, but a great improvement over the first part.  I guess it was the triumph of love, and the determination and will to live to reach the true love made this short section necessary, as well as letting the reader catch up on what happened since Part 1 ended. Part 3 was interesting, the whole girl grows up, realizes her mistake and tries to redeem herself.  Dealing with the casualties of war also forces her to grow up in one long day as a probationary nurse.  IF it had ended there, the reader could imagine that her sister and her lover, after finding each other again live happily ever after, that perhaps while never achieving the lost closeness of sisters, there are repairs made to the relationship.  But in the final section "1999"  the girl, now an old woman, facing slow dementia due to micro-strokes is wrapping up her life's business.  You would be led to believe that the first three parts are the result of her lifelong project - a book.  But as she takes stock, we discover that the soldier - her sister's true love- dies of a blood infection, probably from his wound in France, a few weeks after she sees him and her sister.  Her sister only survives a couple of months, dying in the German bombing of London.  Her cousin, who has married her rapist, now the couple is Lord and Lady, and dedicated to charitable works.  And as the narrator heads to her own birthday party, a full circle is made, as the grand and great-grandchildren of her brother and cousins, stage the play she herself wrote at 13, that she was trying to stage with her cousins for her brother at the beginning of the book.  I don't know, it just wasn't a satisfying ending.

I also checked out Gregory Maguires new book The Next Queen of Heaven  I loved his wicked series (also just got a Lion among Men) and his fairy tale books - Mirror, Mirror and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, are 2.  But this book, happens in upstate New York, with an exceptionally obnoxious teenage girl, who just needs some sense smacked into her.  I got about 50 pages in and decided that live was just too short to deal with another book with an obnoxious girl. So I closed the book and returned it to the library.

I was going to go for my semi-annual hair cut (annual this time, I missed the spring and then it was getting too close to summer - I live in fear  of not being able to put my hair in a ponytail/bun)  but some things came up and now I have to reschedule.   If and when I finally get around to it, don't worry you'll get to see it.  It is tough, because I hate blowdrying - and let's face it I leave my house at 330 am- so it really isn't happening  well - ever!  So the cut has to work with the way my hair wants to fall.  

I did find a new nail polish - I am totally in love!!  It is red ( painted a streak on a piece of paper towel because it was hard to tell) but so dark red that it just about looks black.  And there is a ton of glitter in it so it almost glows in the sunlight.  Of course when I went to take a picture it was hard to find the right light, but here's the best I could do:





They look almost brown here, sigh maybe I'll get a better picture this week!


I went to grace's daughter's a couple Saturday night's ago, to a Lia Sophia jewelry party.  I did get Angie something which for obvious reasons I can't tell you about until after Christmas.  It was kind of fun - haven't seen her husband Tom for a long time (he installs carpet,so when we agree and she doesn't, we chalk it up to carpet fumes)  and I only briefly met her daughter once.   And it was just kind of different from my usual Sat night, with my usual suspects.

I went to lunch at Mara's (local coffee roaster, dessert shop, cafe) with Grace last week.  I picked her up/ broke her out!  LOL!  We had the best pumpkin spinach quiches ever!  She was good and had a salad ( she's lost over 40 pounds since last spring - way to go Gracie!)  Me, I indulged and had a New England Clam Chowder and spiced hot caramel cider.  It was fun catching up. (and she listens to me whine about work, and about Braun's not sending C etc without complaint, and I think she's actually able to follow my jerky, disconnected, ADD  random trains of thought!

Temple annoyed me, they said they didn't receive a tuition payment, and weren't going to let Angie register for next semester, and for some reason we couldn't pull up the image on the computer so Curt had to go to the bank and straighten everything out.  Angie is doing well so far in her classes, she's feeling the work load, but all the time management skills she has from her HS days are serving her well and she's staying on top of everything.  She had a bad cold and since a lot of people in her dorm were coming down with strep, she got checked out, but no strep thank goodness. I sent her a care package with microwave chicken soup cups, zinc/ecchinacea drops, airborne, a lot of hand sanitizer (she did start out with   several large bottles in August, but just to be safe) and I made her some homemade chocolate chip scones with red/white colored sugar on top ( Temple's colors).

She has been keeping up with politics on campus.  She went to MSNBCs Chris Matthew's show broadcasting from the Temple campus, a few days later Bill Clinton was there, and Saturday she gave up the football game (the Owls won without her) to see President Obama on campus.

Project me(5)

So today I'm going to tell you something odd I discovered while working on reading more of the books on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list.  I think I've matured as a reader.  To explain what I mean, I must explain that as a kid and teenager, I read a lot.  I would check out a book in the morning and return it, read at night (ok bad thing, I should have been paying attention in class instead of reading but... reading is good right?) But I didn't do that well in English class, because I liked reading the "story"  I didn't want to think about themes, symbolism etc.  I just wanted a story.  

As an adult, I wanted to escape.  (Probably why I kind of avoid scary stories)  I "enter" the book and not be in the present.  So I wanted a story that sucked you in.  I never read to "think" ,  I read to "not think".  Well, because of various things I heard about Lewis Carroll I read an acclaimed biography before reading Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass.  I read the annotated versions of these (which had a lot of the background I had gotten from the biography)  

In Alice in Wonderland,  I found Alice to be really obnoxious.  Eating and drinking stuff that wasn't hers.  Ok the first two things were labeled eat me and drink me, but when she drank the potion off the rabbit's nightstand and then inflated to ruin his house it clearly belonged to someone else.  When she just invited herself to the Mad Hatter's tea party plopping down uninvited.   She just whined her way through the book.  Someone needed to slap her.  

 In Through the Looking Glass, she is less  whiny, and not as bratty.  She is however, seem very disdainful of the other characters she encountered on the chessboard on her way to becoming a queen.  She expected them to give her all kinds of answers (which as players in the same game they seemed quite confused about) and then she acted annoyed about having to stay and listen to what they had to say/recite/sing until she could get away from them to the next square.  A snot nosed, presumptuous brat who still hasn't gotten the spanking she deserves.  I would not have noticed this had I read  them earlier.  They just would have been fun fanciful stories.

I am now 80% done with Lady Chatterley's Lover.  Where as before it would have been a great love story, with some historical backdrops, it seems as if the actual love story is a very thin, veiled cover for a condemnation of the industrial revolution.  That the new industrial way of life is causing a piece of humanity to die, leading us all to be half corpses,  who are disconnected from ourselves as well as our surroundings.  That due to this disconnect we do not actually know who we are, or what we want, our intuition and true feelings have been eliminated, so we search for "success" or for "money".  This whole thinking while reading thing is -  disturbing to say the least.  Especially becasue it was a feeling of disconnectedness, that has led to this whole Project Me endeavor.

Project Me (4)

Not a huge update this week.  I finally finished Through the Looking Glass, and the first book of a new(ish) series by Nora Roberts - Vision in White.  I returned them to the library this afternoon.  The library was out of book 2, so I picked up 2 more books from the 1001 list.  I got Atonement by Ian McEwan and  Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence. 


Some knitting updates will be up tomorrow ( I am also working on 2 projects for swaps so those pictures won't be up until my partners receive them)   


Since I posted late last week, not a whole lot is new.  I was really tired, between staying up for Monday Night Football, and being up late on WEd getting Angie's fencing gear together, getting back from Philly after my bedtime...  folks, I'm definitely not 40 anymore!! My friends, who are much better able to go to bed when they need to , weren't very sympathetic .  I put the battery in the scale yesterday.  I'm thinking of getting my "annual" hair cut.  It's not annual on purpose.  I put of getting a trim and then warm weather came - and I won't cut it at that point because I NEED to be able to put it in a quick bun or pony tail.


This week I have been trying to extricate myself from several "drama" situations, involving friends or family.  They all hit at once, and seriously folks, I love , well some of you, tolerate the rest, these situations are not of my making nor am I directly involved.  If you insist on my opinion, most of you are not going to be happy with what you hear. If you want me to take sides, please understand that I will categorically pick whomever did not insist on this.  I am not going to be your messenger.  Hire a damn courier.  You are all being ridiculous and you know it.  I am not going to get stressed out or annoyed because of it.

We needed a quiz to tell us this??? Pffft.

You Are Odd

You are an odd duck - you don't do anything the conventional way. You see life as an adventure, and you always take the less traveled path. You love opportunities, but you run from responsibilities. You live for today. You may want to strike more of a balance in your life. You could stand to be more even!

Are You Even or Odd?

Blogthings: We Have a Quiz for Almost Everything

          

Project Me (2)

A week has gone by, and I'm not sure exactly how much I've accomplished.  

I was going to weigh myself this afternoon, tough to lie to a scale.  But I have discovered, after locating the scale in the linen closet, that it needs a new battery.  So, later in the week then.  And don't even kid yourself that I'm going to tell you how much I weigh.  I'm not going there.  But I will let you know if it goes up or down and by how much.  There may be a widget I can put on the side, I'll look into it.


It did cool down considerably last week, and there is a large pond/ small lake on the border of my town and another called Park's Lake.  And there is a park around it, complete with walking/running trail.  I believe it's a half mile (if I remember correctly).  On three afternoons last week, I walked from 2 to 3 laps. I was going to walk 3 laps this weekend with Curt, but he was busy on Saturday, and it poured yesterday.  But three afternoons is better than none, right?  I did not go today as I had a considerable number of errands to deal with, but weather permitting I should be able to go every day (maybe only 1 lap on Thur) this week.  I think I just need to make it a habit. 

Another thing I did, was drink a bottle of water every day.  i know that doesn't sound like a lot, but I rarely drink water.  My main beverage in life is coffee, with the occasional tea thrown in.  I really don't like water, unless I am extremely thirsty, or on a road trip (don't ask how that make sense, I blame my relatives).  The way I made sure I had a bottle of water, was that I brought my lunch 4 out of 5 days last week.  My "lunch" was basically half a breakfast.  I leave for work at 330 am.  I do not wake up early enough to eat.  ( I set the coffee pot on timer, so I do have time to fill 2 travel mugs on my way out)   By 1030, I'm usually hungry.  So when I go out for another cup of coffee, I end up getting oh a Sonic's breakfast burritto, or a DD grilled cheese flat bread, or  a spicy chicken snack wrap from Wendy's.  So I made a bagel thin sandwich, cut it in half , made myself eat half with my first cup of coffee, and put the second half in a cooler with a frozen water bottle.  So I didn't buy any crap food last week, and by the time I got off work between 1 -230, I had an ice cold, but not very frozen water bottle.  This week my big goal is to watch my portion size at dinner.  

I finished my biography ( all 533 pages of it) and have started Alice.  I have managed to read anywhere from 20 min to an hour, almost every day.  I joined goodreads to keep tabs on my reading, and may eventually put a widget on my sidebar.  Currently it wouldn't  do any good, because I spent a lot of time this weekend, while trying not to overreact, and remind myself that sports isn't life or death (not very successfully most of the time I might add) going through various lists on Goodreads and checking off the books that I have read already ( much better for my self-esteem than the 1001 list)  So the widget would show weird books I read 10 years ago.  And just to show that I really am not out to retake English Lit from hell,  I did check out a nora Roberts book when I returned my biography this afternoon.

Hopefully I haven't bored you all to tears with this post!  Another post in a week!

PROJECT ME!

A recent blogpost by Julie, really echoed what I was feeling inside, although I hadn't developed it into a coherent thought yet.  Her post A Journey of Change is here.

I need to lose weight.  Not for looks, but for how it feels inside.  I'm tired of my knees hurting, my back being stiff if I sleep in. I'm tired of feeling like a lump on the weekends.  I know a lot of people who know me in real life may be surprised to read this.  When I'm around other people I really don't let on that I'd just rather veg out.  The problem is that no matter what kind of diet I attempt, the only way I'll lose weight is by working out.  I know that if I muster up the energy to actually work out, I will end up with more energy in the end. 

I feel like my brain is turning to mush.  My reading is defined by the internet and magazines.  The only books I've read in the last several years have been Debbie Macomber and Nora Roberts.  I used to read... a lot.  I don't want to imply that fluff is all I read.  I love Discover and Scientific American, but as interesting as they may be, a three page article is hardly brain bending.


A  lot of this came to light because as I posted earlier, my daughter moved into her dorm at Temple.  So now, I don't have to worry about being home after work for her. I don't have to worry about her uniforms being cleaned and ready for meets.  I don't have to worry about her getting to practice or lessons (even if I didn't drive her - she took my car)  I don't have to worry about being at her meets.  I don't have to care that she doesn't like onions, or raw peppers.  The only things I have to worry about is the house being human, Curt and I having clean laundry, and there being food in the fridge.  I now have time.


I need this time. I need it for me, for my sanity (what sanity I have).  I still don't have a very solid plan.  It's more vague concepts.  I am the kind of person who needs accountability.  So I'm using this blog.  I'm going to try for every  Monday, but that may change.  First to develop a plan.  Then to follow the progress of the plan, tweaking as necessary.  

I've already started on solving the brain pudding problem.  Since last Monday, I have made time almost every afternoon to read.  It is a little bit depressing.  I used to be able to knock out a few hundred pages at a sitting.  Now it's a struggle to read past 40.  It's not the books fault.  The book I'm reading is really very interesting and well written.  ( A biography of Lewis Carroll)  I am reading this biography, because I also checked out an original version of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  All of his characters are parodies of people in mid-nineteenth century Oxford. 

Why Alice??  Not because of johnny Depp.  Sorry.  There is a list of 1001 books to read before you die.  No I do not plan on reading all 1001.  But I think I've only read 33.  SInce I want to read more, I plan on reading some books on the list.  Since I already passed every English Lit class I ever plan on taking there will be many I have no intention of torturing myself with.  But it does give me somewhere to start, so I can expand beyond sci-fi and classic British lit, which is most of my reading comfort zones.  I joined a group on Ravelry (amazing how many different forums a knitting/crochet/fiber arts site plays host to) that has a read a long each month of a different book on the list. Sept is Alice, Through the Looking Glass is October.


I'll let you know how the whole weight/fitness/energy issue coalesces next week.