It's About Time!!

After going back and forth between becoming a teacher, a writer, and working at a publishing company, 2 1/2 years after graduating college, I finally decided what I want to do with the rest of my life.....

I am going to get my Masters in Library Science and become a librarian!

As a librarian, I can still work with kids and share my love of books!  It's the best of both worlds!  Sources also tell me, it's a good field to get in to.

Now comes the hard part.  I first have to pass the GRE and pick the right program.  Focus mode has  commenced!

A Library At The Palm Of Your Hands!!

Six months ago, I got a Kindle for my birthday.  I did't use it right away, because I had some books on my self I hadn't read yet.  I finally started using it a couple weeks ago and I LOVE it!!  I love how you can download books right on the device and get them instantly.  No more driving to the store or waiting for books to ship to your house.  I can make the text as big or as small as I want.  I don't know about you; but when I would open a book and see a lot of really small text, I would automatically put it back. But now I can read anything and not worry about the size of the text.  I even feel like I read faster on the Kindle.  If I read 10% of a book a day, (which it shows me my progress at the bottom of the screen) I can finish a book that might normally take me 2 or 3 weeks to read in 10 days!  But no rush, because the battery lasts about a month so I don't have to constantly worry about charging it.  I am kicking myself for waiting so long to use it!

Stay Gold!!

Months after reading the book, I finally saw the movie version if S.E. Hinton's classic, "The Outsiders." I was extremely happy that the movie stayed true to the book. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a movie ruins, or doesn't do justice to, the book it was based on. Not to mention the lead actors were not bad to look at. Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillion, and Emilio Estevez. All great actors.
I wish I had read the book and watched the movie in high school. Better late than never.

A Story Worth Reading!!

I've had some great teachers and professors throughout my education; but I've never had a professor like Morrie Shwartz. He never cared about grades and he taught lessons that go farther beyond the classroom than math or history. Lessons like forgiveness, and accepting death. Even while he was suffering tremendously, he tried to help others, even if it was just listening to their problems, something he loved to do. Doing so with humor and care. I found it funny how Mitch and Morrie came back into each others lives after sixteen years at just the right time. Mitch needed a push from his life of work, work, work and to find some meaning in life while Morrie needed a great friend to help him through the last months of his life. Even further, if Mitch hadn't seen that "Nightline" program that featured Morrie,it probably would have never happened. I guess the Blues Brothers were right, God works in mysterious ways!! I will never forget "Tuesday's with Morrie" and recommend it to anyone who wants to read a story about friendship, love, life and death.

A New Classic

It took me only six days to read "Gideon's Sword" by Douglass Preston and Lincoln Child. I could not put the book down. Constant action kept me wanting more until the very end. Every time I thought there was no where else to go with the storyline, a twist came and sucked me in again. Even the ending made me yearn for the duo's next book. Gideon's story hits the big screen in 2013 (way to far away) and I hope with all my heart it does the book justice. Time to start thinking casting!!

Little Women

I just finished reading "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott. It took me a while to finish it, which is weird because that usually only happens when I don't like the book, but I did enjoy "Little Women."
All throughout Part One, and some of Part Two, I was certain Laurie and Jo were going to end up together, so I was somewhat disappointed when Jo refused his proposal. I was happy they each ended up happy with someone else, even if it is Jo's youngest sister Amy, and an older Professor. I guess you can't help who you love. You're not supposed to. If I were Amy, however, I would have been worried that Laurie's feelings for Jo would eventually return, or Jo would regret refusing him. But I am fairly certain Jo wouldn't that to her sister, even though she ruined her manuscript years before. And as Laurie explains, Amy and Jo switched places in his heart and loves Jo only as a sister.
I wish I could go on a trip and find the love of my life!! Jo met hers in New York and Laurie and Amy realized their feelings for each other in Europe. I only wish Beth would have lived to find happiness in an others arms.
I would definitely recommend this book to my daughters, when I have them. There are valuable lessons taught in this book, such as there are more important things than money, and family can always be counted on in tough situations.



ps: The kitchen should be done next Tuesday!! Final pictures to come soon!!

Tissue??

I don't know why, but I'm not one of those people who cry at movies or books. I was probably one of the only people who didn't cry at the end of "Marley and Me." It has always bothered me because I am not a robot. I do get upset, I just don't shed tears. But in the end, there is nothing I can really do about it, if I don't cry I don't cry.
To my surprise, I was reading "The Last Song" by Nicholas Sparks and towards the end of the book, there is a scene between a son and a father that honestly made me shed a couple tears. Now, I know Sparks is known to up tissue sales, but I have read...and watched... a few of his books and... nothing. I don't know what it was about "The Last Song," but it got the best of me. Now I am positive I am not a robot!!

They'll Keep You On Your Toes

I love reading books with huge plot twists, like the ones found in Lincoln Child and Douglass Preston's "Relic" or "Angel and Demons" and "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown. The death of a major character. The murderer you thought was good. A shocking marriage/pregnancy. Two best friends falling in love. Suddenly, the book becomes worth reading. More importantly, it stays with me long after the final word is read. I find they are the books I want to made into a movie. The books I recommend to friends. The books I want to read over again (and I don't do that often)!! Although the twists usually come at the end of a book, it is worth reading the 200 pages to get to that moment that makes you sit up wide eyed, reading the sentence over again because it didn't seem real. If only we had more of those moments in real life. The moments we live for.

The Classics

Shortly after graduating college with a degree in English, I realized I have never read a lot of the classics. Those timeless novels that have reached generations and a lot of students read in high school. I am talking, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, The Outsiders, Jane Eyre, The Catcher in the Rye, etc. Don't get me wrong. I have read some great works by amazing writers, like Shakespeare, Homer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel Hawethorne, Geoffrey Chaucer, Emily Dickenson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, but I feel I've missed out on huge, important parts of literature. So it has become my mission to fill in this huge hole in my life's reading list and read these classics, interspersed between the addicting romance novels of Nicholas Sparks that I can't get enough of, of course.