roseaponi

I know, I can't find time to post a proper book review, but I can post this :)
Ummm... Yoshi. ;) Though he'd probably end up as my son's BFF, that would be fine, because I could send them outside to play and Yoshi would eat anything or anyone threatening. (I'm a bit concerned about snakes lately). 

Honestly, who am I going to pick? Some pompous glory hound? A cutesy manga girl? Somebody with an eight-foot long flaming sword? A Tolkien ripoff? I could probably work off a lot of frustration if I had to fight off a horde, but just hanging out with a character in real life would be kinda awkward. :D 

By not chasing "success."  Each of us was created for a purpose - there is something that I was designed to do that will become the driving passion of my life. And if I am pursuing the passion of my life, that in itself is success. 

But if that isn't enough for you, those who pursue their passions are successful in other ways as well. Because when it's that love in your life that you are infinitely suited for, "good enough" isn't good enough. Halfway is unacceptable when you can love it to completion. And that kind of love is obvious in the finished product and very much in demand.

We've all heard of successful people and their legacies. Add some in the comments! 

In no particular order:
 
Walt Disney
Steve Jobs
Albert Einstein 
Anne McCaffrey
my dad, Claude Jester (not famous, but still counts. Just realized he's the only one still living on this list so far! Let's fix that...)
Oprah Winfrey
Martha Stewart (love 'em or hate 'em, they love what they do and are huge successes ;). )
Barbara Walters

Some idiot has hacked my yahoo email account and is sending spam to my contacts.   This is my professional account, and I have editors and clients on that list!  I am so mad right now. If the idiot who got my contact list was in front of me right now, I'd shoot him. Not fatally, but I think he deserves to limp for awhile. 
Now I have to figure out (on my stupid clunky old computer) how to get my password changed and lock him out of my account - assuming he hasn't locked me out. 

EtA: I just changed my password and deleted my contacts list for good measure. What's weird is that it doesn't show that I've sent anything. 

It's day two of 2012 - how are we all surviving?
 The current state of things:
I need to write bills and get into the habit of writing the new year on them, and Jimmy needs to get back into doing schoolwork, though what I'll do for math I don't know. We're down to the dregs of the first grade book and since the trial period of homeschooling is well over, I need to buy real second-grade curriculum soon. 

Meri Lyn has discovered cabinets and my carnival glass punch set. Behind the punch set, I also have glasses, bowls, and candlesticks. Fortunately carnival glass is fairly sturdy stuff, but I'm beginning to think we should have gone with the tea set for her Christmas after all. And some cabinets of her own. She is currently baffled by the new cabinet locks and is consoling herself with the open shelf that houses the DVD collection. 

Joe had the week before Christmas off, and has been working 12 hour days pretty much ever since. One of those was double time and a half, which is like a year's salary in some parts of the world. On the downside, I'm being driven mad - mad, I tell you! - by my shrieking, climbing monkey-children. Meri Lyn's love of the collectible glassware seems only to be exceeded by her love of BASE jumping, though the locations for the jumps are limited and I keep preventing her from completing them. One day, she aspires to leap from the top of the refrigerator, but it's proving too slick to climb. 

Jimmy is working to master a trick from his new magic set, but resists reading the manual. I showed him the cup-and-ball trick, which I remembered from my own magic set, and it's been frustrating him for three days straight. I'm really proud of him for sticking with it. 

Soon, Joe and I will celebrate our 11th anniversary (11! We aren't even old yet and we've been together for 11 years? It's like some sort of bizarre loopy timey-wimey... thing). We are going to Disney World - without the kids! My darling saint-like sister Connie will have them for the week. God bless her (she will need it). 

So... Disney! We'll bring the kids next time, but right now, Meri Lyn won't remember it and Jimmy's a bit obsessive with video games and impatient with waiting. He had a blast when we were there for his fourth birthday, but he's going through a difficult phase right now. By the time we can afford to go again he ought to be straightened out, though ;). I'm excited to be going, and a little panicky around the edges, too. Leaving Jimmy for a week? He'll be fine. Meri Lyn, though, I'm not sure. She'll adjust, but the first couple nights might be rocky. I'm packing food for them to have while at Connie's. I know she will feed them (probably better than I do), but Jimmy has a habit of eating either nothing or everything, and I can never guess which it will be. So either he wastes food or he devours everything and wants more than I have ready. And Meri Lyn is getting to where she eats pretty well, but will not wait in the highchair while her plate is fixed, so I've packed some quick easy meals and portable snacks. I need to pack medicine and emergency stuff in case the weather turns cold and wet and Jimmy's breathing problem starts up again. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, extra pjs and blankets and clothes - I need to remind myself that they're going next door, not overseas. Strangely, I hardly think about my own packing. I suppose I need the usual clothes and toiletries, and the iPad. 

I keep meaning to write about being excited about Disney, but I don't think I can relax and think about it until we're there. I also keep telling people (who ask, "How can you leave them for a week? I couldn't leave my kids!") that yeah, it's easy, I need a vacation, I'm confident that Connie's going to take awesome care of them. And that's true, too. Yes, you really can hold two opposing beliefs at the same time. Where did you think stress came from? 

We probably ought to take the tree down before we go. 

Oh, and I received a curious email from a site where I had posted a manuscript page for review. It seems that a small publisher has been scouting their site and expressed interest in my writing. Since this manuscript got set aside when I got sick last year, I probably ought to pick it up again and do something with it. I've had a lot of opportunities go whooshing by last year because I was focused on the wrong things. This year, I give up picking my goals. My resolution this year is an anti-resolution. I am laughably bad at picking the best thing to do (this includes checkout lanes and parking spaces). From now on, I'm done with deciding and planning and elaborate unworkable strategies. I never have enough information to go on to know whether something is honestly a good thing for me to pursue or not, so I'm giving that responsibilty back to the only Person who does. 

Literally, God alone knows what I'll be working on this year. The sooner I'm ready to listen, the sooner He'll tell me what it is. 

Today is the best day of the entire year :)
For one, my dear husband gave me a keyboard for my iPad! Now I can type properly, with both hands! 

But the first and most important reason that today is the best day of the year is the same reason that this is the best day of every year. This is a special day to celebrate the biggest, most stunning reversal of destiny the world has ever seen.

In this world full of constant pressure to do better, be better, measure up, and get ahead, this world of broken people looking up to aloof gods and begging for favor and mercy, where religions of every type require their adherents to become worthy before they can recieve enlightenment or peace, something earthshaking happened. 

God came to us. 

I would say that it happened 2000 years ago, but that was only the beginning. Jesus came, not because anyone had cleaned themselves up and become worthy of grace, but because we needed help and He loved us. He came to heal us, to teach us, and to turn us away from earthly expectations that only lead to hopelessness. To bring in the outcasts and heal our pain, to fill the great void that we only know is there because of that persistent knowledge that "something is wrong with me." 

That's what he did for me. An amazing gift that has brought me peace, and comfort, and the knowledge that I am loved as the daughter of the King. I'm not perfect and never have been, but God loves me :) I want to be able to love like that :)

I know a good many of you on my friends list and passing through have other beliefs or none, but i sincerely hope you'll give today's post some thought. This is the good news that Jesus brought: God will adopt you if you ask Him to. What you've done and who you've been doesn't matter - God already knows. He went through a lot of trouble to get your attention, but you still have free will. It's still your choice. 

I love you all and I wish everything in your lives to work out for your good.
*hugs*

Greed. If enough was enough, there would be plenty of everything for everyone.

Of course that would take a radical shift in human nature, which is problematic at best, creepy at worst.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (yes, male privilege bias and all)

A way to pay off my credit card (not much on it, but more than I had to spend since the online store promo didn't work like I thought it would. Joe's anniversary gift had better be spectacular when it arrives, that's all I can say)

Peace - if not the entire earth, then at least within earshot.

A housecleaning fairy. Or $20 to pay my niece to come help out for a couple hours.

A clue to the location of the very nice Christmas lights we bought last year.

Oh, and a keyboard for the iPad :)

I received the ebooks of Well of Sorrows and Leaves of Flame awhile back and I've been trying to get back to review them ever since. Part of the problem is that I want to do an illustration with each review, and Well of Sorrows doesn't lend itself to one simple non-spoilery image. So, I have done a slightly spoilerish image that takes place fairly late in the book, but is at the beginning of Colin's new existence.

Also, I know I was going to be reviewing Beauty and the Beast-themed stories, but I'll have to get back to those after Christmas. I did buy Nalini Singh's Lord of the Abyss, which I will review once I am quite certain I am done snickering over the cover.

Now for Well of Sorrows, by Benjamin Tate:

Colin was born into the wrong political Family.  He and his immediate family are refugees in a hostile colony in the New World (not America, though there are parallels). Barely twelve years old, he must help provide for his family, try to make sense of the hatred toward his family, and try to avoid getting the snot kicked out of him daily. His life is much like everyone's else's life in Lean-to, the refugee camp on the outskirts of the colony. His attitude is much like everyone else's - he's just as capable of hatred and violence as the people around him, though he might be a smidge more capable of remorse. There is very little to distinguish him as the hero of this story, except his sheer stubbornness and strength of will.

But after all, he is only a twelve-year-old boy shoved into an adult world of cruelty and prejudice. There are worse qualities than stubbornness to have, and few as practical. What he becomes over the course of the book is both more himself and less human. His good qualities have a chance to fully develop to their furthest ends - and so do his worst traits.

The world building in this book is spectacular - surprising, unique, and utterly believable. There are echoes of several cultures in the description of the humans, the dwarren, and the Alvritshai, but they are significantly different than their likely inspirations. It puts me in mind of Andre Norton's Witch World series in its complexity and the interaction between the various members of different cultures and classes. Not only are the cultures unique and carefully thought-out, but also the people within them. No one is interchangeable - everyone has their own reasons, reactions, and motivations for everything they do, which makes the theme of prejudice resonate even more.

One thing that impressed me most about this book is the fact that nothing is glossed over. Beliefs are important, gods are important in more than a name-dropping sort of way, food and shelter and travel are serious issues, weather is important, everything is there and nothing is taken for granted. 

Here Be Spoilers: Readers may want some warning that this also holds true for the characters. No one is guaranteed to be spared from a grim, horrifying, untimely death. Not even highly sympathetic POV characters with names.  Of course this is realistic, and those who die are missed and grieved for in a believable way - no one dies without consequence. However, I am still quite freaked out by the pregnant woman. And by Karen's fate. Honestly, she would've been my first pick for a hero - she had not only stubbornness, but good sense and empathy as well. She was the only well-drawn female character in this book for a long while, I thought. (Leaves of Flame does improve on this front. I assume that in these three cultures that clash in the book, which are all male-dominated, there just aren't many opportunities for women to shine.)



It doesn't quite do her justice, but there was a lot going on while I was working on it. I was lucky to finish.

Overall, Well of Sorrows was an excellent read - surprising, suspenseful, and full of gritty, intricate realism that was fascinating enough that I can forgive the loss of my favorite character and look forward to what Colin will do with the strange life left to him.



(Disclaimer: this title was a free review copy, but that in no way impacts the integrity of my opinions here.)

I've finished reading both Well of Sorrows and its sequel, Leaves of Flame, by Benjamin Tate, but between Thanksgiving preparations and everything else, I don't think I can do a proper review this week.

I'm cooking corn on the cob, sweet potato pie, and some cookies for Thanksgiving at my sister's - since she's been out of state at a funeral since yesterday, I hope everything's okay. I offered to help, but she couldn't think of anything for me to do. That may mean she has it all together, or it may mean she doesn't know what to delegate. I hope it's the former.

A deer jumped into the goat pen and is now being mocked by its herd.

Anne McCaffrey, whose books dominated at least a decade of my life and who is my first writer hero, has died. The first book of hers that I read was published the year I was born, so I knew it was coming. I remember being surprised and happy she was still alive ( my childhood books were old and bought at the fleamarket for 25 cents apiece. Not many living authors in that group.) and wishing I could go to Ireland to meet her.

I never did.