Wrapping It Up: 2013 Book Review

First, I apologize as it has been a long time since my last blog.  Usually I feel my words bubbling up into a blog at least once a week, but the only thing I had building up in me this past week was sinus pressure and congestion.  Merry Christmas Rebecca!  Here is a sinus infection and yes, yes I did wrap it in a layer of bronchitis for you.  I have spent a lot of the last week laying my heavy and weary head on the couch, drinking tea until I cannot stand the thought of tea anymore and generally thinking of nothing except how lovely it would be to breathe through both nostrils at the same time.  I am three days into antibiotics and feeling much better and just in time as Bill is now laid up with the same maladies and the kids are surviving on leftover Christmas cookies and video games and have gone a bit feral.  The boy is scratching at the door right now making wolf noises as I am in the room with the new Xbox and told him he can't come in.  Videooooooooooaroooooooooo, I better hurry.

I generally like to keep a list of all the books I have read over the year as I have had the obnoxious goal of reading 100 books a year for a few years now and I need to write them down in order to remember them as well as seeing how close I am to 100.  There was one year I was pretty close and had read a good 75+ books, but this year I was not even close. That full time work really cuts into my reading time, let me tell you.  Even worse, I decided this year to keep my list on my iPad and somehow I deleted my list! Stupid technology! So not only do I have a total number of books read, but I can only remember a handful of them and that is after trolling "The Best Books of 2013" websites.  (Rest assured I am going old school this year and keeping my list handwritten in a notebook.)  

By far two of the best books I read this year belong in Children's Literature category.  The first one is "Wonder" and if you haven't read it yet, you must stop right now and go get it.  It is beautiful, it is heart-wrenching and it will make you cry and feel like a bad and good person all at once.   I oohed and ahhed over this book back in April and a full review can be found here Shameless Plug One.  The second great kids' book I read was "The One and Only Ivan".  I loved this book because it was written from the perspective of Ivan, a silverback gorrila living in too small a cage and his animal friends.  I dare you to read it and ever go to a circus again.  This book was tastefully done and will also make you cry.  I, ahem, also reviewed this book and a further review can be found at Shameless Plug Two.

Actually, looking at my cobbled together list, I see that I spent a lot of time reading and crying this year.  "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes was by far one of the best books I have read in a long time and one that left me with tears streaming down my face and a runny nose as well.  It is a beautiful love story and will melt the hardest of hearts.  Next up on the Tearjerker Express?  "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green.  The buzz surrounding this book and upcoming movie is legit.  Pick it up and read it and hold onto your heart.  Bill had to hold me after I finished that one, I was a wreck!  John Green is an amazing writer and an author whose books we cannot keep in at the library.  Try him, you will like him.  A third book that haunted me and left me in triumphant tears at the end was "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson.  I listened to this one on CD and I will tell you, it was a little depressing.  This girl's story haunted me and stayed with me each day until I finally drove far enough to reach the end and I cheered and cried a little in my car.  If you have a teenage daughter, read this book because unfortunately, this stuff happens every day.  And if you have a teenage daughter, have her read it as well because she needs to know how important her voice is.

"Code Name Verity" is another Young Adult Book that I read and loved and recommend to girls at school all the time.  Historical Fiction?  Check.  Strong female character? Check.  Can't put it down?  Check.  Surprisingly enough, another book I recommend all the time is "Rot and Ruin".  Dystopia meets zombie apocalypse and samurai swords.  Well-written, good story and both boys and girls like this book and its successors.  Finally in the world of Young Adult, color me impressed with "Allegiant".  Way to end strong and not make the third book a waste of my time and paper as so many third books seem to be.

"Life After Life" tops quite a few of the bestseller lists.  I thought it was good but that there was one or two lives too many...got it, wrap it up already.  "Cuckoo's Calling" I enjoyed.  It was a good detective story written by our beloved and beleaguered JK Rowling.  If you don't go into it expecting Harry Potter you won't be disappointed and the title is not "Harry Potter and the Cuckoo's Calling" so cut the woman some slack!  Finally, "The Son" by Philipp Meyer was outstanding.  It was epic.  It was sweeping.  It was drama and saga and reminded me of The Thornbirds even though there was no dirty priest love.  It was incredible writing throughout a very interesting story and when I was done with it, I wanted more.  

One of the many perks of my new job is that we get Advanced Copies of books that have been yet to be released.  Woohoo for me!  I have brought a lot of them home and only been able to read one or two.  One I had to read because all the girls were reading it and oohing and ahhing over it.  I read it and felt I had to let them all know that if you show up at a 19 year old's apartment at 2am, he is going to want to do more than cuddle.  Honestly.  "Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd will be out in February.  Read it.  Historical fiction that changes voice each chapter and hits on slavery and women's rights - winner, winner, chicken dinner if you ask me.

Alright, what I can remember of books in 2013 reviewed and wrapped up. If you have any to recommend for me in 2014, send them along!  And for those of you who do not know of my intense hatred of "Little Bee", please do not suggest "Little Bee.  To anyone.  Ever.

Extra, Extra!! Read All About It!

I love getting mail this time of year.  Glossy catalogs, sale circulars and best of all, holiday cards.  Love, love, love to get holiday cards!  I love the pictures of your family and the handwriting that reminds me of notes passed back in 5^th grade.  I enjoy the snapshot family pictures as well as the pictures where the family is so beautiful you cannot look at it too long for fear of being blinded.  (Smith family this means you)  I love the way they look lined up on my counter and explaining who people are when the kids ask.  I am hit or miss when it comes to sending my own cards, so I truly appreciate the people who haven’t crossed me off of their list.  But I have to ask, as I have received nary a one, where has the Christmas newsletter gone?  Do we no longer summarize our year on special holiday paper? 

If video killed the radio star then I think that perhaps Facebook may have killed the holiday newsletter.  Little Johnny got all A’s?  Post!  Hilarious things that came out of his mouth today?  Post!  Great picture?  Silly picture? No picture, just rant?  Post, post, post!  Who wants to wait to the end of the year to brag or opine or whine?  Do it now, do it electronically and let the world see!  I love a Facebook post as much as the next person, but it does make me sad that we are so instantly updated that the need for Christmas newsletters seems to have gone the way of the CD player.

I can’t remember if I have ever sent a newsletter myself.  I know that I sent a Christmas poem one year after SG was born and I was full of post-partum hormones.  We refer to that Christmas as the Christmas that never happened.  You have a baby 14 days before Christmas and tell me how festive you feel.  Ho Ho Ho?  No way.  More like weep and wail and leak and cry.  Good times.  Anyhow, in the spirit of trying to revive Christmas newsletters, I have decided to blog ours.  (This also covers me for not sending cards this year) 

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope that this letter finds you in good spirits and great health.  We have had a busy year at the McMahon household and hope you will forgive Rebecca’s incredibly cheesy way of forwarding our sincere Christmas wishes to you and yours.

2013 brought a lot of change and among the biggest, Bill is now a vegan.  (Militant).  Who would have guessed this?  The man that once consumed a KFC Double Down sandwich despite chest pains and immediate swelling is now champion of the farmyard animals.  His veganism has been the source of much mockery and meat pictures posted to him, yet he remains strong.  Go Bill!  The man drives 100 miles each way to work and as such has become a Prius driver.(Militant).  We think he has logged more miles this year than a cross-country trucker and he has the NPR knowledge to prove it. 

M turned 16 this year and has a social calendar that rivals only the Queen of England’s.  That girl is never home.  She is taking terrible classes like Chemistry, Algebra 2 and Pre AP World History and finds she actually has to read and do homework to get good grades.  She is learning to drive and has Bill to thank for her encouraging her on that.  Rebecca is sticking her head in the sand and pretending this isn’t happening.  M has great taste in music and has increased our knowledge of what is cool.  Thanks M!

SG started middle school this year and it was a rough six weeks compounded with stomach flus and she had a hard start to it.  She has a great group of friends and has recently gotten her legs under her and it is nice to see her smile again.  She has become an expert at giving dead eyes and conveying how much she despises us without saying a word.  She is active in Drama Club and hopes to be involved in cross country (what?!?!?) and basketball next year.

Ahh, the boy.  W loves his after school care so much he is mad no matter what time we get there to pick him up.  He does karate (almost a yellow belt!), gymnastics and piano and tolerates school.  He chose this year to start testing out lying.  It did not go well for him and he spent six weeks with no electronics.  Somehow we all made it through that and he is now happily ensconced in his world of video games.

Rebecca borders on obnoxious with how happy she is with her new job.  She is a Library Assistant at a high school and may have found her calling.  (Note: she changed her actual job title as she finds the real one makes her sad about her life choices)  She is challenged, she is busy and she works with fantastic people all day long.  She has kids who thank her for her sarcasm and snark and feels as though she has truly touched lives.  She is learning to engage in confrontation and finding that she might actually like it.  A lot.

 

Yes, 2013 will go down as a good one in McMahon family history.  We hope that your year has been as good and if it hasn’t, well we are definitely the ones to tell you to hang in there, it will get better.  Hopefully you are thankful for what you have, even if it isn’t exactly what you want.  We hope that you have a restful, peaceful holiday season and are surrounded by people you love and love you.  We wish you one good belly laugh each day and a New Year’s filled with good intentions, but not resolutions.

Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year!  And much, much love

The McMahons

You're So Vain

Recently I have found myself encouraging my preteen to believe that she is beautiful and thin and telling her daily that she is FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.  She is 5'6" and just a little over 100lbs and has been asking me again and again if I think she is fat.  Do I think she is fat?!  I think she is tall and willowy and leggy and gorgeous and fat is not a word that ever comes to mind when I look at her.  However, because she is taller than most girls and boys in her grade and because she is much further along the puberty train, she feels big.  She feels fat.  She feels insecure and inadequate and that kills me.  I look at her and see beauty and youth and vibrancy and she looks at herself and sees big and average and blah.  My stepdaughter does not ever comment on her outward appearance but spends a lot of time straightening her hair each morning and putting her face on before she goes to school.  She also likes to have things.  Things her friends have or things people at school have and feels it painfully when they have things she does not. (this happens often)

I want to blame society.  I want to blame TV and movies and music videos.  I want to blame magazines with their airbrushed visions of perfection.  Page after page of shiny hair, tiny waist, white teeth and tan skin.  I even want to blame Disney for their teeny tiny princesses with their luminescent skin and their perfect hair and ability to sing and dance and sword fight.  I want to blame kids at school and I want to blame the world around us and I want to like every Facebook post that proclaims the world sexist and harming to women.  However, as I began to think about this post, I began to see maybe the problem isn't just with the world around us, but the way I react to the world as well.   

I would tell you that I am not a vain person.  I go out with terrible hair and no makeup more often than I go out with nice hair and makeup.  I wear hand-me-downs and shirts I have owned for years and that were not in style when I bought them. I will use the same purse for years.  Through all seasons.  I don't own a full length mirror because I truly do not care if my shoes actually go with my outfit. I have hosted more than one get together in my pajama pants.  I ignore the fact my eyebrows are growing together in between threadings.  But when soul searching, as I have been, I have to say I am completely vain in one area and that I am completely guilty of showing it to my daughters.  Of telling them that I too believe that I am not good enough for what the world wants.  For not believing myself that I am FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.  For not practicing what I preach.  

I will say that I am more comfortable in my skin at 40 than I have been in the past.  I am never going to have long legs or thick, lustrous hair and I have made peace with that.  I try to eat right but I also enjoy copious amounts of red wine and chocolate.  My vanity, my Achilles heel when it comes to being at peace with who I am, is my face.  Six years ago we all had a terrible flu. All five of us spent days on the couch burning with fever, shivering with cold, muscles aching and coughing and sneezing and sleeping.  I got the bonus prize of Bell's Palsy at the end of that flu.  I seriously woke up one morning with the right side of my face frozen - my eye that would not open or close, my mouth drooped and lopsided.  We were afraid I had had a stroke.  Once I was diagnosed and was told it would get better with time, we got on with life.  I put on a pirate patch to keep my eye protected and told everyone "Oh well, it's just my face."  I had a hard time eating (go give a dog some peanut butter and watch him eat, it looked like that) and lost weight and said "See, there is a plus side!"  Or when it hurt so much as the nerves regenerated, I would think that was okay because it meant I was healing.  And I did heal and it got better but my face was never back to 100%.  This was recently commented on by my doctor who said "Huh, I guess it never went back to 100% did it?".  Huh, I guess not jackass.

For the most part I just go about my day and my life, but I will admit to being a freak about my face in pictures.  I hate pictures. I try to use as many pictures of me before the BP as I can. I hate the way my right eye droops and the way it seems to be attached to the right side of my mouth.  I hate the way the left side looks happy and the right looks a little less interested.  I hate meeting new people and wondering if my face is doing that Crypt Keeper thing when I smile.  And I have showed my girls this again and again and again.  Take another one, I will plead.  Or "Man I hate that picture!"  The bravado of "It's just my face" replaced with "Ugh, my face."

Maybe owning up to this will help be more patient with the 12 year old who just wants to be like everyone else.  And perhaps I will try to understand that sometimes having things makes us feel better about other areas of ourselves.  Or I will listen to my wonderful husband who sang me a beautiful song about angry mirrors and beauty that made me and all the kids cry while I was walking around like Patchy the Pirate and sad, and I will believe him.  It could be possible that the only one thinking about how weird my face is is me.  Maybe I can show my girls that we all have things about ourselves that we would like to be different.  That we all have insecurities that threaten to overwhelm us or overtake our general air of contentment.  Maybe owning up to them keeps them from owning us.  

But I still blame Disney.

Joy To My World

You know what emotion adults don't experience enough?  Joy.  Oh, we have joy on the days we are married and we are almost crushed by joy on the days our children are born, but day to day joy is hard to maintain in our busy lives.  

You put the dishes away? Hooray! Let's jump for joy!

Dogs feel joy every day.  Heck, they feel joy every ten minutes.  Owner comes home? Joy.  Food in the bowl?  Joy.  Door opened to go outside?  Joy.  What?!  A walk?!?!?  Uncontained joy making it hard to get a leash on due to excessive howling, spinning and merriment.  Well, from Bailey anyway.  Grommit (aka Eeyore) sits sullenly waiting to see if she will be leashed up too.

I am incredibly fortunate that I share my house with a nine year old boy who not only finds joy every day, but infects the rest of us with it.  Life has not been kind to my son and he has had a hard time of it since the day he was born.   Hernia repair and double eye surgery all before age two.  Delayed development due to the fact he couldn't see kept him a baby for a long time but my gosh he was a happy, happy baby.  It took him forever to reach milestones, but along the way, he smiled with his beautiful smile and laughed with a laugh that would just tickle your soul.  He brought us joy before he even brought us words.

School is hard, hard, hard for my boy and while it wears me down for him, he loves to go.  He feels he is very popular and there are cute girls to impress and off he goes each day with his Pokemons tucked under his arm and a smile on his face.  We tell each other our highs and lows each night at dinner and while he has many highs about the day, he rarely has a low.  We often say that God wrapped him in Teflon and the things that would crush the rest of us seem to bounce right off of him. His Teflon does occasionally get pierced and his sadness tears holes in my heart, but he recovers much quicker than I do and he is back to being exuberant and ready to keep going.

Sometimes his joy is misplaced and it is a struggle to get him to see what needs to be done.  He and I have been at loggerheads about homework all year.  "I did that last week" he will say and think he is done.  I will remind him he has to do it every week.  He will say "nuh-uh", and on and on until one of us is ready to pull her hair out.  He also drives his sisters crazy with his non-stop happiness and they either snap at him or let it beat them down and join him.  (I prefer the latter)  The boy with horrific vision who cannot catch a ball to save his life will tell you he is going to play for the NFL when he grows up.  Ouch says my heart.  He doesn't even play flag football because his foray into basketball one season left Bill and I crushed and depleted on the sidelines.  However, if you ask him about it, he was awesome.  And given that he can punt a football 35 yards easy, maybe he will play for the NFL.

We recently put up our Christmas decorations and he was a large help (hee hee) getting the tree up and the lights and decorations on.  Our kids have always liked to lay under the tree and look up at it and no sooner were they done decorating that he was off and running for blankets.  I am sure my daughter feels herself too old and cool to be hanging out under the tree, but she got caught up in his enthusiasm and was not only under there, but reading to him as well.  Enter Mom joy there.  Whose turn is it for the Advent calendar? He knows and informs me first thing every morning.  The boy I have to remind to put socks on each day is barrelling down the stairs and turning the tree lights on every day.  He also rushes in after school and turns them on then.  He is so excited about Christmas and about the tree and its lights, I find that I am happy because he is happy.  One morning this week we had extra time and I laid under the Christmas tree with him and we talked about the day and Pokemon and some video game and I tell you, it really lent an air of peace about my day.  Normally I tune that video game talk out, but I let him run on and on and it wasn't as painful there under the tree.

Best seat in the house.

I am sure this is probably his last year for believing in Santa and I am soaking it up.  He was very concerned wondering if Santa would still come given his bad behavior as of late.  We assured him that continued good behavior would go a long way for him and it was not too late to get off the naughty list.  He seems a little wary but has chosen to believe us.  Worry replaced with joy just a few hours later.  

We are blessed that he is joyful all year round, but I tell you, his joy is almost palpable this time of year.  The trees, the lights, the chocolate and sweets starting to pile up and the nervousness of Santa coming take his joy and turn it into pure magic.  He is so excited about the tree lights, I become excited about the tree lights.  He is laughing about something ridiculous and there is his sister laughing with him.  Dad is not feeling well but is still so caught up in listening to what he has to say because his eyes are shining and he can't get the words out fast enough.  Oh and Christmas morning!  He will not be the first one up, but he will be up in an instant when he hears his sister and will spring from the bed, smile on, feet hitting the floor and running.  He will be laughing and oohing and touching and even before he starts opening, he will be shaking.  All that joy, all that happiness, all that intensity too much to keep inside and he will shake all through opening his presents.  And we will laugh at first and then watch him some more and Bill and I will smile and feel our  hearts grow three sizes and think it is a very merry Christmas indeed.