The Host

I finished reading The Host by Stephenie Meyer tonight. It was interesting. It wasn't one of my favorite books. I know that a lot of people I've talked to really liked the book. I did like the ending, though I would have thought it more interesting if Wanda was placed in Ian's body at the end. Stephenie Meyer's endings are just all sewn up too nicely into happy endings. The gushyness of the book bothered me, as did the weakness, helplessness, and submissiveness of the main female character. The love triangle, or should I say square since there were 2 people in one of the bodies, was very interesting. Though, I did find it very fickle of Jared to go from beating up Wanda to wanting to hold her hand and kiss her. The first two-thirds of the book I found very boring--life in the caves. It got more interesting when they started going on raids. The most heart-pounding part of the book was when they were pulled over by the Seekers. The book illustrated some very interesting concepts, though--prejudices, fear, trust, peace vs. violence, choice vs. influence. And yet, these themes were merely glanced over, and not thoroughly explored. I also found very interesting the scene with the family playing in the park (in which the parents were body-snatchers with their biological child) and its implications (the way that society was changing and the possibility of peace between humans and aliens). The book was very creative. It was a good read, but not as gripping nor as thought-provoking as others I've recently read.

Deb's New Blog

Well, I decided to start my own blog for my personal stuff, leaving only family stuff on the family one. It just seems better that way. So welcome to my blog! I transferred some posts (below) onto this blog. I apologize to those who left comments on these posts, which I was not able to transfer.

Update

There it is. As you can see, I still have the kitchen pile thing goin' on! I tried with the binder, but everything still gets piled on top. Does it look like a mess to you? I guess it's somewhat tidy. At least it's in one pile instead of spread out all over. Oh well! At least I can hide it away when we have company, right?

The Kitchen Pile . . .

Oh yes, the kitchen pile. Why is it that there is always a kitchen pile? I can't even tell you how often it is written on my "to do list" to clear the kitchen pile. What is in the kitchen pile you ask? Surely you should know . . . isn't there one at your house? You know, that pile in the kitchen of grocery store ads, bills, random magazines that just came in the mail that you just may want to look at before chucking, spelling lists, reading charts, the current school fundraiser, along with "picture day" order forms, book orders, school work, and any other paper that needs to be dealt with. When the mail comes, if I have time, I sort out the bills, and toss the junk mail into the recycle bin, but everything else that needs further attention goes into the kitchen pile. Then, the kids come home from school, empty their backpacks, it gets looked at & thrown in the kitchen pile. Fortunately, I eliminate a lot of paper by simple reading the notes from school, writing everything immediately on the calendar, and tossing the paper. If I had no kitchen pile, all of this stuff would end up all over the house--stuck to the fridge door, the inside of the pantry door, all over the counter, in my bedroom, in the office, and literally throughout the house; I'd probably even begin to find it under my pillow. So how do we eliminate the kitchen pile? I've tried, and I don't think it's humanly possible. Oh, sure, sometimes I can tuck it away out of sight, but it's still there. It's in the cupboard on top of the phone books. The only drawback to putting it there is that I forget the important things in the pile until it's too late . . . the book report assignment is late, we miss picture day, miss the book order, or miss that great sale on beef roast at Macey's. If it's not staring me in the face, it's forgotten. I have learned not to do this with the bills. So, today, I set myself to the task of eliminating the kitchen pile. Truthfully speaking, most of it gets moved around, not eliminated. A bunch of it was coupons which I cut out & put in the coupon organizer in my purse. The grocery ads were expired (yay!--one less thing I have to do), so they got tossed. Then there are some things that I need to do, but can't do right away, like the visiting teaching messages I need to take to my sisters sometime this month, the ward activity flyers that I need to deliver down my street (I can do that today...maybe). Then, there's a pile of children's school work, that I may or may not want to hang onto for nostalgiac purposes. So, all of that goes upstairs to the office to be sorted through later. Then there ends up being a pile of Jode's stuff that I don't dare throw away, but know that he will probably not know what to do with either. So, I have come to the conclusion that there will always be a kitchen pile, though some of it may migrate into the cupboard or up to the office into yet another pile. I think we have enough paperwork around here to run a not-so-small business. I guess that's what a family is. Who ever thought that running a family would take so much darned paperwork!Well, I'm trying something new . . . or something again. I learned long ago that you can keep all such things in a binder containing dividers with each family member's name in it, and maybe even a few other categories, like shopping lists, coupons, ads, whatever you need. I already have one, cuz I've tried this method before. Why did it fail you ask? Because once it goes out of sight, even if just inside a binder, it goes out of my mind. Guess what I found in there . . . all sorts of mystery papers from a few years ago. Hee. Hee. Hee. Anyway, I'll give the binder method another go. I'll let you all know how it turns out. If you have any other suggestions, let me know. Until next time . . . Happy piling!If you need any tips on calendaring, now that's something I've mastered!

I'm Addicted to the Written Word

Deb Is a Reading Maniac
I've been reading a lot lately, like all me free time--and lots of time that should not be free time. My house cleaning has gone down the tubes, & everyone fends for themselves for dinner. Sometimes I manage to keep the laundry going while I read. I even forget to eat. I'll stay up till the wee hours of the morning & still won't be able to nap the next day, cuz I just gotta read some more. I guess I'm just addicted to the written word. Once I start a book, I just can't stop thinking about it till I get it done. I have to finish it so I can get on with life. But then, I don't get on with life--I just pick up another book. It's like a drug--as soon as I finish a book I want to start another. It's a vicious cycle. Aaaahhhh! When will it end? Here are some of the books I've recently read & my opinions about them . . .Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Number the Stars (Newberry Medal Winner) by Lois Lowry, Summer of the Swans (Newberry Medal Winner) by Betsy Byars , Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley, Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. I know there are some more, I just can't think of them off the top of my head. Jode and I just finished reading Men Are From Mars . . . together. It was very enlighting. The workings of the male mind has long been a mystery to me. Now I can understand it better. It has revolutionized our relationship. We are currently reading The Five Love Languages together. I've read it before, and Jode's read most of it before. It's a great book too. I set out this summer to read a bunch of Newberry Medal winners. Number the Stars and Summer of the Swans were the first two I read. They are both quick reads, a couple of hours. Summer of the Swans is about a girl at that awkward stage of growing up who over the course of a summer comes to terms with her brother's mental disability, sees the adults in her life through new eyes, and learns to get along with a boy bully/enemy and with her older sister. Number the Stars is written by Lois Lowry, the only author ever to win the Newberry more than once. Her other winning book is The Giver (one of my all-time favorite books!). I also love Lois Lowry's novel A Summer to Die. Number the Stars is a fictitious story depicting the struggle of one family who helped Jewish friends escape to Sweden. In actuallity, the people of Nazi-occupied Denmark helped smuggle almost all of their Jewish citizens into the safety of Sweden. Over 8,000 citizens were smuggled out; 99% of Danish Jews survived the Holocaust. This is a wonderful story of bravery and heart. Bella at Midnight is the charming story of the daughter of a widower knight, farmed out to a wet-nurse as an infant. Bella grew up believing she was a peasant and that her foster family was her own. She was best friends with a prince Julian who was also nursed by her foster mother. They grew up together and were dear friends--almost like brother and sister. When they reach the ages of 13 and 16, they are parted and not able to say goodbye to each other. She is called home to the house of her true father who has remarried (a tyrannt and a man insane with grief over the loss of his first wife). Her prince is sent to a neighboring rival kingdom as insurance for the honoring of a treaty between the two kingdoms, which have been at war for over a hundred years. If the king, Julian's brother, were to attack, Julian would be killed at once, as the treaty would have been broken. As Bella returns to her new home, she finds that she is ill treated for her coarse peasant ways, though she is of noble birth; she becomes a Cinderella of sorts. She accidentally learns of the king's plot to make war, and so rides off to warn her dear prince Julian before he is executed. She then manages to stop the battle herself, at great personal risk, becomes a hero, and lives "happily ever after" with her prince Julian as husband. It is a sweet, charming story. I enjoyed it immensely. It had a predictable storyline, but was still well-written, entertaining, and light--a delightful read. Breaking Dawn I read in 2 days. I couldn't put it down. I liked it better than all previous 3 of the series, though I still find Bella a shallow character and Stephenie not the best of writers, though her work has improved with each book. Bella was less annoying in this final book, probably because she's maturing. It still gets me though how she has no self-esteem, even as an amazing mythical creature with endless powers. She finally gets it at the end. All through the saga I've wanted to shake her or slap her for her lack of self-esteem. My favorite part of the book was watching Bella experiment with her shield at the "battle." My favorite thing about the book was getting into Jacob's head. I loved hearing his thoughts. He's so hysterically sarcastic! Even the titles of his chapters are immensely entertaining. Yes, Jacob was my favorite character in Breaking Dawn, though I hated him in Eclipse. I guess he's growing up too. I was disturbed by the delivery scene, wanted to slap Bella the whole time she was expecting, especially because of how she seemed to be making all of the wrong choices, and because of her need for Jacob which she had no right to have, and the way she was hurting Edward more every moment. But I do still agree that Breaking Dawn is the best of the series. I first decided to read The Golden Compass series when Linda Mair suggested it for book club. There has been a lot of hype about it ever since the movie came out. Supposedly, the author is an athiest & depicts the children "killing God" at the end of the series. Linda thought it would make for an interesting book club discussion. She did decide to have us read something else for book club, but I thought I'd read The Golden Compass to find out for myself if all of the rumors are true. It was a non-stop read from page 1 of Compass to the last page of Spyglass. 1312 pages later, I had a lot to think about. Especially from the Mormon perspective, this series is very intriguing. I found myself thinking and comparing Gospel doctrines with "mainstream Christianity" doctrines and Pullman's ideas. It should not surprise us that our Mormon beliefs are not mainstream Christianity. The Christians of the world may think Pullman's ideas are outrageous; the would think the same of our beliefs. I have come to the conclusion that Pullman's writing is not anti-God, but anti-authoritarian. It speaks out against the oppression of the Catholic Church in previous history. But, this oppression can take many forms--in government, church, authoritative families or personal ignorance. All of the rumors about the Compass series are false. It is not satanic, atheist, nor God-killing. In actuality, Pullman's ideas about the body, soul and spirit, about agency, and about the battle between good and evil, and about the true character of God are more in line with LDS Gospel principles than not (learn more at http://www.lds.org/). The body is a divine creation of our Heavenly Father, a divine gift. In Pullman's books, bodiless angels covet the human body for its ability to feel, taste, touch, and experience nature and life. Also, Pullman depicts the true God as an representation of agency, knowledge, intelligence, and enlightenment. He also shows that the Fall was a good thing--creating intelligence, choice, work, family, love. The "Authority" of Pullman's imaginary world is not the Creator, but actually a rebel angel who set himself above the others, and used the church as his tool to inflict his own agenda on people of many worlds and imprison whom he choses. In his old age, he became complacent and hid himself deep in the mountain, appointing a "Regent" to rule in his stead. This regent is the epidemy of evil and ill-justice. This "children killing God" nonsense is just that--nonsense. In the end, the evil regent is emprisoned forever in an abyss by some adults. The children try to rescue the aged authority from some horrible creatures bent on destroying him, the children fight off the monsters and rescue him. They reach to him, he reaches to them out of his protected place, but his strength leaves him and he disappates into the air. But in actuality, the true "God" in the book, the good entity of knowledge, beauty and agency is saved by the children through their choices of unselfishness--freeing the spirits unjustly imprisoned by the authority, thus allowing them to be released into nature and live free as particles of intelligence throughout the world. They also choose to do the right thing by living in their own worlds and shutting the man-made doors between worlds so as to keep the evil spirits that destroy life from entering those worlds and destroying human lives. There are several other things to think about regarding the book. Many, many themes. But even without searching for a deeper meaning, the books are an entertaining read about a world (or many worlds) of interesting characters, creatures, places, events and adventures. I found the books compelling, intriguing, yet not as dark and frightening as Harry Potter. They are more like a Narnia type of read. But I definitely did not feel any evil in the books--like I said, they are not as dark as Harry Potter, or many other books that I have read. I would suggest this series to any of my friends. It is definitely an interesting, thought-provoking read, well-written and creative. Anyway, that's my 2 cents on that.We also purchased a charming children's picture book called My Imagination by Katrina Estes-Hill, illustrated by Alvina Kwong. Kwong is a local artist whose work has appeared in The Friend often. We met her at Barnes and Noble at a book signing. My Imagination is the story of a young girl bored with television who goes outside to use her imagination. It's written in rhyme and very fun! The illustrations are beautiful. It's a fun book! The kids really love it too!Jode's friend Paul Genesse has just published his first novel called The Golden Cord. It is the story of a dragon. We just bought it, & I haven't started it yet. I'll have to let you know how it is. We also bought a book of short stories in which one of his stories is published. It should be interesting. I also just bought Stephenie Meyer's The Host, which I've heard is good. There's still a lot of books out there waiting to be discovered! Aahhh, for the love of reading!