104:95 Lover Revealed by JR Ward

The 4 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. We follow Butch and his quest for Marissa and a purpose in this one. Standard stuff. They both want each other but for different reasons keep pulling away until the very end. He goes through a regression thingie to find out if he has vamp dna in him so he can be more worth of her. She tells him it doesn't matter, except for that whole feeding thing. blahblahblah

The best part was the side story with the war against the lessers. Up til now, it's been pretty low-key with not much going on besides they kidnap or kill the females of the Brotherhood. At the very beginning of the book he is captured by lessers, is worked over, and has something of the Omega put in him. It gets weird after that point with V doing some weird crap with his deadly hand to keep Butch alive but when he comes out, he can sense lessers and is able to inhale them and turn them to dust. Really weird but at least it's something new and interesting going on.

Of course, in the end he and Marissa hook up. Big shocker.

Page count: 455p/29,947p ytd

104:94 Lover Awakened by JR Ward

The 3rd book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. This book focuses on Zsadist, a brother who was stolen as a child and turned into a sex/blood slave. The torture he was put through contaminated his soul and it is believed even by his twin that he is ruined. Enters Bella who falls in love with him. They go through the whole song and dance with him pushing her away and her coming back, him bonding her and then rejecting her, his trying to foist her off on his twin as being the male she deserves, her finally getting sick of his sh*t and leaving, his realizing what he had let go off and changing himself to be more the man who would be worthy of her, and her taking him back. It all wraps up in a nice pretty bow with a baby girl at the end.

Sure lots of other stuff happens with her abduction and more in the war with the lessers but it's all pretty much filler for the basic storyline of these novels. When one of the other brothers' wives was actually shot and killed I thought maybe there was hope for the book that it wouldn't go for the easy out. That maybe Bella and Z (boy, Beauty and the Beast, how much more cliche can you get?) would eventually get together in another book but it would at least be drawn out, he might actually have to work to get her back but nope. It was a very unsatisfying ending simply because it's formulaic and there isn't enough other plot really going on to hide the formula. It's not a bad series, just very very predictable.

Page count: 434p/29,492p ytd

104:93 Lover Eternal by JR Ward

The 2nd in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. As I figured, this book is all about Rhage finding his eternal mate. Apparently this seems to be the formula for the Urban Fantasy Romance (maybe all romance series for all I know, I don't read the rest). Find a fairly basic formula and plug different characters from your universe into it for each book. It's formulaic and really only sort of works if the characters are interesting enough. This series so far is borderline. I enjoy it, it's fun, but the formula is standing out a little too thickly for me. I'll keep reading them since I have them here and there is enough fun in them to let me just turn off my brain most of the time and just enjoy. If I didn't have them sitting here waiting tho, I'm not certain I would go searching for the rest of them. Larissa Ione did it better.

Page count: 441p/29,058p ytd

The Gryffindor Scarf

Here's Matthew modeling my first finished knit project:

I think it came out pretty well, especially for a first time. I know the yellow isn't quite the right shade but hey, I bought it a couple of years ago and was just doing it for fun. I wasn't going for totally awesome authentic. What matters is that the kids like it and are happy to have a Gryffindor scarf of their own now.

Well, that and I get to have fun with my Doctor Who scarf now. :) I've been trying to keep the ticker at the bottom pretty updated with that. Should be fun watching it all get colored in.

104:92 The Truth Machine by James Halperin

Written in 1995, it imagines a future where a brilliant man is haunted by a tragedy from his past and vows to use his incredible intellect to try to assure that society survives and in a better form than is predicted. He invents the Truth Machine which is 100% accurate and eliminates deceit from our world. It takes years to invent and even longer to become wide-spread but eventually people give up their privacy and they are everywhere. It imagines a future where disease is basically wiped out as is famine and poverty and crime is virtually unheard of and criminals are swiftly caught and punished. A bit of a fanciful tale in that but it's interesting to see how things take shape.

Of course, it would be a dull book if that was all there was to it. The main character, Pete, has done some awful things to ensure the completion of the Truth Machine. We follow his story as he deals with the emotional toll of his actions and his eventual disclosure of the truth. It gave a human element to the story that otherwise would have been fairly boring.

My only complaints about this is that I found the ending a little too pat, a little too nicely wrapped up in a pretty bow, and I understand that the main character had to be brilliant and would naturally be drawn to other brilliant people but again we had the complex of everyone in the book was brilliant/beautiful/wonderful in most ways. Yes, Pete had his demons and had anxiety issues but still, it would be nice to have some people that were more "human" rather than superhuman.

Page count: 416p/28,617p ytd

104:91 The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum

The fifth Oz adventure written by Baum. In this one, Dorothy meets The Shaggy Man by chance and when trying to help him find the road he wants, ends up on a road that will take her hither and yon through fairylands until she eventually ends up in Oz in time for Ozma's birthday party. She and the Shaggy Man make friends along the way and a wonderful time is had by all at the party where everyone who is anyone in Fairyland, including Santa Claus, makes an appearance.

The boys continue to love the series and I love how it captures their imaginations. Such wonderful books.

Page count: 261p/28,201p ytd

104:90 By the Shores of the Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Ingalls have been struck by scarlet fever and poor crops. There is no money, Mary has lost her eyesight, and their little boy did not make it out of infancy. This is where this book picks up. Pa is invited to help Aunt Docia and her husband with their inn for railroad workers in the new town of De Smet which is on the shores of the Silver Lake. With few prospects in Plum Creek, Pa agrees and the family again moves west. The end of the book sees them settled on a new homestead for what they hope will be the last time.

Again, these are wonderful tales of the pioneer spirit. Laura is fiesty but is settling down and stepping up to help take Mary's place as her mother's main helper. The family has been through so much and you can only hope each time that their luck will eventually turn around because despite everything, they keep a cheerful outlook, faith, and hope.

Page count: 290p/27,940p ytd

104:89 The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

I find myself having a hard time with this book. I liked it but was never grabbed by it. I felt that Salinger did an excellent job portraying the frequently conflicted emotional state of a teenager but maybe it's because I live with one and get to see much of that on a daily basis, reading about a couple of days in the life of just wasn't gripping for me. Said teenager liked it tho and I think that's because it spoke to him and helped him see that it's normal. I'm guessing I would have enjoyed it more were I a teenager dealing with it but reading now as an adult, I merely found it ok.

Page count: 214p/27,650p

Nicholas's First Reading

We've been working with Nicholas on his basic phonics sounds for almost 2yrs now. Very gentle approach with reading alphabet books and saying the sounds as well as letter names and then gradually asking him if he could say them first. Watching the Talking Letters Factory by Leapfrog. Simple things like that.

This year I pulled out our Hooked On Phonics and decided to give it a try. We would play games of his choosing and have him do a few letter sounds between turns. We've been doing this for a couple of weeks now and he seems to have a really good grasp of his basic sounds (only gets confused with ones that aren't in common usage and it's hard to understand his 's' due to his speech issues and no front teeth). So I decided to take it up a notch yesterday and we started doing the letter mix-up stuff to make sure it wasn't just memorized in order but truly learned. No problem. So today, he wanted to go for the whole thing and try reading. He had some problems understanding to put all the sounds together but he did finally start to get the hang of it and I got one of his attempts on video.

Taking a deep breath between Drs appointments

We actually have a week with no Doctors appointments, no extra field trips, no miscellaneous crazy stuff to add on to our already crazy schedule. I figured I'd take this opportunity to fill in what's been going on lately.

Last week I actually had a doctors appointment for me (ob) which thankfully got me a clean bill of health there and I don't need to go back for 3yrs.

Matthew had an appointment with a physical therapist to deal with his loose rotator cuff. He now has a bunch of strengthening exercises that he needs to do daily and a follow up appointment with her in a month.

We had our first meeting of the school year with our ES. It went well and things seem to be on track (as much as they ever are around here).

I finally kept my year old promise to the boys and took them on a field trip to Malibu Castle for some mini-golf.

We got to see Mark's grandparents for a little bit on Labor Day. Kendra went in for knee replacement surgery the following day so we had a nice family day before hand.

Christopher started his astronomy class at CSM Coastside. He's enjoying it and even better, watching space shows at home counts for his lab time so long as I sign off on it so we don't have to try to find time to get him over to the main campus for things there and I get to watch it too. :)

Christopher also just texted me that he got his first graded college homework assignment back. It was for his Japanese class and he got an A-. I'm hoping that this is the start of good things in his college life.

104:88 The Ancient Chinese World by Kleeman & Barrett

Finally got Matthew to finish this one. Not sure why it took him so long but that meant I could finally zip through it. It's been interesting reading these now as Chris is also doing World History for high school. He's using a UC a-g approved text book and I can't believe how skimpy it is compared to these Jr. High texts. It really makes me appreciate the richness, even in it's simplicity, of these books. I think my favorite part in this one (besides all the wonderful pictures of artifacts) was learning how the Chinese have adapted Buddhism to fit their beliefs.

Page count: 157p/27,436p ytd

104:87 Dark Lover by JR Ward

The 1st book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward, another urban fantasy/romance series. It's a first book so obviously there are some slow parts but Ward does a decent job of letting the story fill in the pertinent background without stopping everything to introduce you to the world. The vampires in this one seem to be less powerful and less the sexy hunks than in many others of this genre. The vampires are a different species that need the blood of the opposite sex of their species in order to survive. They do not typically feed on humans. There is a mystical being called The Scribe Virgin who apparently created them and there is her opposite, The Omega, who is bent on destroying them by use of the Lessers. Lessers are humans who have given up their humanity and their hearts in order to be better weapons for The Omega.

As a first book, there is a lot of introduction to the world and the members that will be the main characters in the books to come. It looks like Ward is going to do the "switch main characters every book" thing with this one which, when well done, is fun. This book followed Wrath, the reluctant king, and Beth. Their romance was sweet and sappy but I liked the fact that typically once mated to someone of their choosing, the vampires seem content to stay faithful. I prefer that over other series where it seems to be more about collecting as many of the opposite sex as possible. I read the book in about 2 days. Not great literature, not super fast paced, but it was a fun read and good for when you need to turn the brain off for a bit and just enjoy the ride.

Page count: 393p/27,279p

104:86 Grave Peril by Jim Butcher

The 3rd book in the Dresden Files. The walls between our world and the Nevernever are becoming thin and something is messing with ghosts. Harry needs to figure out what is doing it before he and his friends end up as ghosts themselves. With so many places to look, can he figure it out in time? And what is the cost?

Lots more vampire stuff and political intrigue going on in this one. Harry tries to save everyone but the big thing I liked is that in this one, he wasn't able to. There were consequences. I like it when authors don't always take the easy way out and tie everything up with a nice bow at the end.

Page count: 378p/26,886p ytd

104:85 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

All I knew about this book before reading it was it took place under water and there was a giant squid involved somehow. I'm now wondering why people make so much of a creature that figures into so little of the book. I had a hard time with this book, I'll admit it. I enjoyed the philosophical debates and insights. I enjoyed the human interactions. I was bored to tears by the constant classification and historical dates. It was really hard to get past those sometimes but then I would get sucked in by a conversation between Nemo and Annorax. I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'll be itching to read it again any time soon.

Page count: 437p/26,508p ytd

Knitting update

So in all the craziness of this week, I failed to mention that I finished knitting my first project, the Gryfindor scarf. When I say "finished knitting" that would be exactly what I mean because since it's my first project and I had no idea what to do once I'd done the knitting thing. I looked at my instruction booklet and realized I must have picked up the one written in Greek because I couldn't figure out what the heck they were talking about (I should mention for those who have missed it I'm a kinesthetic/visual learner, show me how to do it or even better let me do it right after you show me and I'm good, try to explain it verbally or just give me a brief written explanation with one picture and I'm totally clueless).

Thankfully my mom came to visit today. She's been doing this for a little while now and knows this kind of stuff and, by her job definition as mom, showed me how to cast off. So now that part is done. I'm in the process of weaving in the ends and then I'll put the tassels on and post pics. It's not perfect and I'm sure any psychotic dedicated fan will be all up in arms over the fact that they yellow is too bright and I used a patten with straight needles rather than knitting the round but you know, I don't care. It was my first project and I think it came out just fine. My kids will enjoy playing with it and I learned how to do something new. I'll post pictures once it's fully finished.

Now I've started my Doctor Who scarf. My mom found a pattern to shrink the pretty season 16 scarf down to a more manageable 12' length. Unfortunately since there are so many different yarns people might use, there are no directions on how many stitches to start with, more of a guide of "1/2 the scarf is 11" wide, the other half is 9" wide". Um, okay. Took me a few tries casting on but I think I've got it now at about 9" wide. I'm guessing as it gets knit it will relax a bit and then stretching and blocking will make it closer to 10" but we'll see. I'll be updating the ticker at the bottom once I've done enough to show up on a ticker. LOL

Oy, what a week!

This definitely is going down as one of the longest and emotionally hardest weeks I've had. It ranks just below Christopher's birth and time in the NICU as far as weeks I never EVER want to repeat ever again.

The week started on Monday where I found out after Jon's therapy that I did indeed have to drive all the way into Redwood City to report for Jury Duty. I got to spend 4hrs sitting around waiting to see if I would be called (in which case I would need to be excused because there's too much going on right now for me to serve). I get home to find Mark on the phone with the anesthesiologist for Nico's dental work.

Tuesday was a normal, if entirely crazy day. I was thankful for that.

Wednesday was Christopher's MRI. I ended up making an apt for a contact lens fitting for me as well and then he was complaining about a rash on his arm that morning so I called and was able to get an appointment for him to see a pediatrician shortly after his MRI. My bright spot for the day was getting in and out of Target and Costco for under $10 in each store. Having to sit in a waiting room for almost an hour while Chris was in a different building have an MRI done, not knowing how he was handling it? Definitely something I could have done without. Thankfully he did well and they got all the pictures they needed. The neuro-ophthalmologist should have the pictures any day but unless there is something they feel they need to immediately deal with (praying there isn't), we probably won't hear anything until his follow-up on the 24th. Not sure if he'll order up the EEG based on this tho. That is a possibility. Just have to wait and see. Then it was over to the pediatrician to find out that he has poison oak. Apparently there is some weird strain on the coast or my family has very odd genes because it doesn't show up for about a week after being exposed. He now has a topical steroid creme to put on 2xs a day until it's gone. Thankfully as I'm writing this, it's much less red and itchy so healing seems to be going nicely.

Got home to find out that the pediatric dentist could do Nicholas on Friday morning.

Thursday was fairly normal except for the constant phone calls from the dental staff making sure I didn't have any more questions. Frankly, I didn't want to be thinking about it so that made the day pass by that much more slowly and difficult.

Friday came and I bundled up Nico, packed up Jon, and headed in. It was supposed to be a three hour procedure. It was closer to four. Original plan was to extract one molar, they ended up removing that and his four top front teeth. Between all the changes it was about $1000 more than we had been quoted but the worst (as I'm getting this bill) is hearing Nicholas wake up in the other room screaming. The only thing that stopped me from bowling people over and racing back there is someone coming out telling me to get his blanket and sit down because they were bringing him out to me. The doctor barely had him in his arms he was moving so fast to get him to me. I had been okay up until that point but seeing him there, in my arms, crying so hard, his mouth all swollen, his spit bloody...Yeah, that started the tears falling. I just sat there and held him and cried. I couldn't help it. Yep, that's right up there with most awful parenting moment EVER! He did finally calm down, we paid the bill and got out. I cried the whole way home. I still have to hold back tears when he grins at me and there are no teeth there. He was fine a few hours later once he had some food. He even wanted to go bike riding although I told him no way for the first day. Temper tantrum ensued. This morning he wants pizza. He's completely adjusting to it which just shows how resilient kids are. I'm definitely having a much harder time with it all than he is.

But today, I've got to get up and get going. Kids have Pan Moin and LARP. I'm keeping Nico away from his first soccer game even tho he wants to go so badly but I'm just too worried about his getting hit in the mouth today to consider it. I told him he'll be back to practice on Wednesday and he can go to the game next week. I'm just hoping to get through the day without bursting into tears constantly.

MRI is scheduled

Got the call for that today and since that's the one that we are hoping might provide answers, I'm happy to have it scheduled. He'll go in around lunchtime next Wednesday. They could have gotten us in on Monday but I've got jury duty that day so went for a few days later. Still need to hear back on getting the visual field test scheduled and his follow-up with the neuro-ophthalmologist scheduled. Then I can start calling around to Physical Therapy for Matt and the dentist for Nico. What fun.

104:84 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Read for Christopher's book club.

Ok, no doubt about it, this is one strangely written book. Hilarious at times, but fatally realistic at others. I'm not a big fan of books that jump around constantly from place to place, time to time, back and forth, but somehow it worked with this one. All the bouncing was just a part of the character of the novel. Brilliant and insane, hilarious and poignant, tragic and surreal. It's an impossible story to fully describe, you truly have to read it to have a chance of understanding it.

Page count: 453p/26,061p ytd

Update on Chris

First, I want to thank everyone who has been asking after him for the concern and prayers. To say its been scary is an understatement. I'm very thankful that he's been able to not have it bother him so I can do all the worrying.

Now, here's where we are at today. We still don't have any answers. The neuro-ophthalmologist spent 1½hrs examining his eyes including doing a full dilation with the fun drops. He said there isn't anything wrong with the eyes themselves so that is ruled out. The fact that his brain brings the double images together so he's not seeing four of everything and that he has not shown any disorientation from this could suggest that this is something he has been dealing with for a long time and if that is the case, it may just be the way he is wired. BUT we are going to take this at face value and that since he just noticed it, we are going to proceed as if this is something new. He has ordered a Vision Field Test (I think that's what he called it) to do a full test of his peripheral vision and a MRI to start with and may do an EEG depending on the outcome from those tests. We'll see him again in a few weeks to discuss the results and he'll do some other testing then as well (a few things that with prisms he couldn't do after the dilation). He is guessing this is something in the optic nerve but highly doubts that it is a mass or growth pressing on it as that would exhibit other symptoms so that also rules out anything life threatening. It also rules out most autoimmune things I've seen that list double vision as a symptom because all of them have something else come up but the neuro-ophthalmologist said that if all the tests come back without anything abnormal, this could just be the way he is wired and we should monitor it but otherwise not worry. His pediatrician did say that if none of these tests turn anything up, we are welcome to come back and see him and we'll look into other things. We'll see where we go when that time comes but it's several weeks into the future and we are taking one thing at a time right now on this.

After spending 1½hrs in a small cramped Drs office, I took the boys to Taco Bell for a quick bite before taking all 4 of them to go spend more time in a small cramped Drs office. What can I say? I'm apparently a glutton for punishment. Everything looked good with everyone tho and no one broke anything so I'm calling it a success. Nico and Matt got shots. Chris was due for some but I elected to hold off until we figure out what is going on with his eyesight. The pedi didn't bat an eyelash, just handed me the slip to take to the clinic when we are ready to do those. Matt has been having issues with his shoulder so the pedi looked at that and it looks like he has a loose rotator cuff muscle and would benefit from PT so we have a referral for that (cause you know, my calendar was all full of spare time that needed to be filled up). The biggest disappointment came for Chris tho when he learned that he has apparently shrunk since they measured him earlier this month and he was only 5'5.25" which put him in the 30th percentile while Matt measured in at 5'2.5" and the 90th percentile. I'm sure the groans about this have just started since I could see the evil glint in Matt's eye about this news and the only bets being taken are how soon he'll be teasing Chris about it.

So that's the news after spending almost 4½hrs at the Drs today. I'm very happy that we just have KSW tomorrow and nothing else. Thursday we get to go back to the Dr to have them read Nico's TB test (cause you know I'm not qualified to see that it's already disappeared) and I'll get to do the Costco shopping then since I couldn't fit it in today.

104:83 As You Do by Richard Hammond

Subtitled Adventures with Evel, Oliver, and the Vice President of Botswana. This is sort of his chronicle of some of his adventures one year. Told from his perspective we get a lot of inside looks at what happens behind the cameras during his Artic Race and African Safari on Top Gear as well as his documentary with Evel Kneival. He also tells the tale of the floods that hit near his house that year.

What you get is pretty typical Richard Hammond without much in the way of surprises but more of the backstory of things you've seen. The flood story was touching tho and gave a bit more insight to the man behind the television presenter. The fact that he ran home 19mi in order to be there when his daughter woke up on her birthday and then went through a lot to help rescue his friend from his flooded house. Those show his true character.

Page count: 257p/25,608p ytd