Interesting Fact!:

I was just reading the “Maroon & Gold Review” which is the Central Michigan University Alumni newsletter, which I receive. And turns out that the book is actually about the author John Grogan (which if anyone read the book they may know, I have not read it yet but know it’s coming out as a movie this Christmas). And not only is it about this John Grogan guy, but he graduated from CMU in ‘79! And here I thought the only famous people from CMU was the carpenter on the TLC show “Trading Spaces” and “The Little People” star Amy (forgot her last name), which is also on TLC. I mean, I’m sure there are others but I’m not aware of them so this was pretty exciting and interesting news lol. Or maybe I’m just really tired and think it’s more exciting than it is….? HAha

So last night I finally finished the book I’ve been reading, seems like for forever. I don’t read very fast, or very often, so it takes a while to finish one book.

Bitter is the New Black is a true story, and even though it says “memoir” on the front, I didn’t really realize it until I saw her website. I was almost finished with the book when I saw her website. It talked about her 2 dogs by name and I said, Hm… thats what she named the dogs in the book. Then I saw her husbands name, Fletch, definitely an odd name- couldn’t be a coincidence- haha. Well this book was alright, didn’t strike me as the “BEST BOOK EVER” feeling, I was left with an, “EH” feeling. It was good, don’t get me wrong. And it’s definitely an admirable transformation by Jen, you have to give that to her. She went though a huge change. She started off as a snobby “rich bitch.” Once she lost her very well-to-do job and was unemployed for so long she started changing little by little and was humbled by the experience. By the end…cue the fairy tail music. *raising one eyebrow*. I’m happy and all for her, but I guess I didn’t expect, or want, it to end happily. Sometimes people deserve whats coming to them, and most of the time, in real life, people don’t learn hard lessons and stick to being “good.”

And I’m not one for dwelling on differences, even jokingly being sarcastic of ones own faults. She made too big of a deal about being overweight, in my opinion. I mean, I guess it did play a big role in her life and the way people treated her, but come on, enough is enough. lol, if that doesn’t sound insensitive I don’t know what does, but I just don’t like people playing the “Oh Woah Is Me” card and getting pity for something like that.

And the end was kind of choppy for me… She was babysitting for her nieces and nephews and came to the realization that they now like her because they actually know her. She has time to visit with them now that she’s not working 24/7. Now that is a good realization and would have been a good ending. Then she goes to her friends wedding and sounds Super Annoying, pretending it was her wedding since she couldn’t mingle with everyone at her own because she was so busy with pictures and this and that and she got completely hammered and then made an annoying drunk phonecall to a friend. Learn anything there… I think not. that part could have been left out and it would have been much better, it was like she was just trying to fill space like it had to be so many pages long or something and she wasn’t quite there. Then the ending was back to the transformation, she went to get her hair done and the hair stylist remembered her… 2 years later *roll eyes*… and remembered how she was always carrying shopping bags with her and pointed out how she always got her nails done and spa treatments, but she only wanted her hair colored and stuck to that. Which is good, good for her for finally learning to splurge less. Then the epilogue i just skimmed through, didn’t interest me haha. so it was pretty choppy at the end which left me with an EH feeling.

writing exercise 13: I’m a 12 yr old girl, living on a farm, found diary from 1864

Some people might not have opened…

the small, cobweb filled door in the loft of the barn. But I was a curious young girl and loved secrets. But I’ll tell you how I came upon this door before I get too far ahead of myself.

Me and my older brother were playing baseball with the neighbor boys on my Grandpa Jack and Grandma Jane’s farm. One of the bigger boys hit the ball up into the barn, we thought it went up into the loft. Since I was the lightest, they lifted me up to go find it. As I was walking along the creaking braces, trying hard to balance on the beams and not fall, I finally spotted the ball in the corner. “I found it!” I shouted. A couple of them yelled for me to throw it down so we could finish playing the game. I hurried over to the ball and that’s when I noticed the little door. It was only about half the size of a normal door and slanted on a diagonal with the shape of the roof. I was so intrigued by that door I had never noticed before. I had been up in the rafters before but never over on this side of the barn, since the floor had mostly fallen out. We weren’t allowed over this way. I threw the ball down to the boys though the hole in the floor and told them I’d be down in a minute. My brother didn’t think it was a good idea, he knew I’d get in trouble playing on that side of the barn, but I told him I thought I heard a cat and had to find him. He went on back to the game and didn’t give me another thought.

I opened the door slowly, afraid of what I’d find. The door creaked loudly. The floor was luckily in tact, but I cautiously stepped on it in case it gave way under my weight. There was a little tiny room just barely tall enough for me to stand up straight, I ducked my head a little so it wouldn’t hit the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. There were a few wooden boxes piled up to one side. I brushed the dust off of one to reveal the name Mable. Mable, I thought to myself, what an unusual name. That must be great grandma Mable I’ve heard so much about. My grandma Jane loved her grandma Mable and talked about her all the time. She told so many stories about when she was little that you would have thought they were the same age and lived through the experiences together. It was crazy how much she could recapture the memories just from stories Grandma Mable must have told her. I lifted the top of one of the boxes inside was another box, but it was a round cardboard box, a little dusty and worn. I opened it and found a couple of hats. I tried one on and wished I had a mirror to see how silly I looked in these old fashioned hats. I need to remember to bring a mirror up here with me next time. I pulled back the lid of a second create and found a few tin boxes. I opened them up one by one. One tin box contained photographs. Wow, look at these old black and white pictures. I was mesmerized by the people and wished I knew who they all were. I wanted to ask my grandma but was afraid she would yell at me for being over here. Maybe I’ll take the chance if she’s in a good mood when I get back to the house. I open another tin, there are folded papers and letters inside. I open the last tin and there is a book. I pull out the book and flip though the hand written pages. This must be her diary! I lean over to a crack between the wooden boards which is letting a little light in so I can see what was written. The book was full of entries, most of it was dated in 1864. I skipped around reading a few pages here and there, I was so excited that I couldn’t figure out where to start, I just wanted to know what everything said. This must be why Grandma Jane knows so much about her Grandma Mable. She must know these boxes are up here and read this before. I decide to start from the beginning. I got half way though the first page and my brother is calling me from inside the barn. He said grandma Jane was calling us for lunch. I hurry and put everything back where I found it, but I stuck the diary in my waist band and pull my shirt over it so no one can see it. I can’t let them know I took it but I might not be able to get back up in the barn tonight and I really want to read the rest of this diary to find out more about my family, and maybe some secrets…

I made a run for the border… no, not the Real border as in state or country… and no, not even the taco bell border (that was a great slogan by the way) but yum does that sound good right now… but the book store, borders. I got a giftcard from my lil bro for my birthday. I was like a kid in a candy store, so much to choose from and not sure what was most important.

The first book I picked up was “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I first read about this book in a magazine, I think it was an Oprah pick if I’m not mistaken. I then heard about it from my friend Polynesian Princess. She actually got it from someone else, too. So I figure it must be good you hear about it from so many places, right? My friend told me that it was good, she said there was a part in the middle that was kind of slow but once you get past that it gets better. But Then after I buy it and tell her I bought it, she tells me the book is depressing! haha. Gee thanks for the late warning. But then she did say she was glad she read it but the author kind of “bugged her.” So we’ll see if I like it! I’ll have to give my own review after I read it. ask me in about 5 yrs after I finish all my books I have to read right now. Ha- Joking

The next book that looked intriguing was “Something Borrowed” by emily giffin (don’t know why but she does not put her name in caps so this was not a typing error on my part). I am kind of excited about this one because if I like it I already have a series to read with “Something Blue” and “Baby Proof” and also her coming soon book is called “Love the one you’re with.” so we’ll see how that goes. I also heard about this book previously, and then when I picked it up and started reading the first page of the first chapter I knew I had to get it. Here is part of the excerpt that I liked…

I was in the fifth grade the first time I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came across a perpetual calendar…So we located our birthdays in the following year… I got Wednesday, a school night. She got Friday. A small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn’t need braces…She had a better sticker collections. More Michael Jackson pins. Forenza sweaters in turquoise, red and peach (my mother allowed me none- said they were too trendy and expensive.

This passage made me laugh, and made me compare it to my own childhood and it was pretty much the same! Other then the author is the only child and her friend Darcy had a sibling, it was the other way around for me, but everything else seemed to fit. My best friend seemed to have all the “luck,” and the tanned skin, the better hair, the better clothes lol. So since I could see so much just in the first page of the book I knew I had to get it!

And lastly, my hubby actually picked this book up for me knowing I would absolutely adore it… It is titled “Our Family Tree and Album.” It guides you to fill in all this information about your family: names, places you visit, how different members of the family act and how you relate to certain situations, etc. And also has places for you to put pictures in! Of course I love the last part the best haha. So you are creating your own family tree and album using this book and I just think that is the best thing. And when we have kids we add in their names and pictures, and then pass it down to them so they have record of our family. I wish I had that, that would be cool. My grandma actually did a family geneology search and traced us back to the Salem Witches, crazy huh?? I never did get to see it though, I always wanted to look at the results but she lived in FL I lived in MI so we rarely saw her. But now since I see her more I’ll have to remember to ask next time I’m there…

But that was my exciting book trip… lots of fun things to read now, and even a great little project to do!

 

3-15-08

I recently finished reading this book called “Freefall” by Kristen Heitzmann. I borrowed it from my friend Polynesian Princess who got it from the ‘landlord’ (i guess is what she’d be called) when she went to Hawaii on her last visit there. This book is great. It’s set mostly in Hawaii, but also California. I don’t think I’m giving too much away by saying that this girl falls off the ledge of a water fall and gets amnesia. So basically she’s trying to figure out who she is, why she’s there in Hawaii, and what happened to her, throughout the book.

Now, I am an English Major, and my last few semesters focus was literature so I will try not to get too deep or lengthy haha

But I was wondering why it was called “Freefall.” Besides the Obvious reason of her free falling of the cliff, I think there’s something more too it. I think it has a double meaning.

Dictionary.com defines free fall as:

noun
1.	the ideal falling motion of something subject only to a gravitational field

So something falling by itself with no ‘rhyme or reason’ you could say. Nothing forcing it.

hmm… so how about since she lost her memory she has nothing forcing her actions or her life anymore. She doesn’t feel obligated to act a certain way, so she’s free falling in a good way, into something good, away from her problems.

Or how about the male lead is free falling into love. He says over and over again “I love too hard.” When he cares for someone he falls hard, without control.

I don’t know, those are just a couple ideas I came up with on the spot. I just love figuring out “hidden” meanings to things and thinking, “Ah Ha, I get it!”