Let's see... my public school math tells me that it's been just about 4 years since I've touched this blog. Lord knows, it wasn't for lack of material. Oh, the stories I could tell (but won't).
The Miller fam has been busy these last few years. Still in Hood River, but instead of having elementary and middle school aged boys, we have two almost-men highschoolers. Hayden's a senior and trying to decide which college will get to have all of our money. Nate is a freshman, and is laying low... I'm thinking that'll change once his brother blows this popsicile stand for the glitz and glam of dorm life.
I quit my job that I had for 2 1/2 years and have been devoting the past 6 months to being the proper helicopter-mom (NAILING it!).
Kirk is still superman. If it's water, liquid or frozen, he's on it. He also started a baby vineyard. And finally has the 77 VW Bus that he's always dreamed of. I think I've only been in it 3 times, and that's only after he has hosed the thing out with bleach. I don't really want to be touching (or sitting) where other people have been over the last 35 years unless there is a clear disinfecting plan in place.
Anywhoo... the real reason for this post it because with all my spare time, I've been doing a lot of reading and I love finding book suggestions, so I will share the love.
Seattle, 1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son,
Daniel, goodnight and departs to work the night-shift at a local hotel.
She emerges to discover that a May-Day snow has blanketed the city, and
that her son has vanished. Outside, she finds his beloved teddy bear
lying face-down on an icy street, the snow covering up any trace of his
tracks, or the perpetrator's.
Seattle, 2010. Seattle Herald
reporter Claire Aldridge, assigned to cover the May 1 "blackberry
winter" storm and its twin, learns of the unsolved abduction and vows to
unearth the truth. In the process, she finds that she and Vera may be
linked in unexpected ways...
The Weird Sisters
Three sisters have returned to their childhood home, reuniting the eccentric Andreas family. Here, books are a passion (there is no problem a library card can't solve) and TV is something other people watch. Their father-a professor of Shakespeare who speaks almost exclusively in verse-named them after the Bard's heroines. It's a lot to live up to.
The sisters have a
hard time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but
especially with one another. What can the shy homebody eldest sister,
the fast-living middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in
common? Only that none has found life to be what was expected; and
now, faced with their parents' frailty and their own personal
disappointments, not even a book can solve what ails them..
Sister
When her mom calls to tell her that Tess, her younger sister, is
missing, Bee returns home to London on the first flight. She expects to
find Tess and give her the usual lecture, the bossy big sister scolding
her flighty baby sister for taking off without letting anyone know her
plans. Tess has always been a free spirit, an artist who takes risks,
while conservative Bee couldn’t be more different. Bee is used to
watching out for her wayward sibling and is fiercely protective of Tess
(and has always been a little stern about her antics). But then Tess is
found dead, apparently by her own hand.
Bee is certain that Tess
didn’t commit suicide. Their family and the police accept the sad
reality, but Bee feels sure that Tess has been murdered. Single-minded
in her search for a killer, Bee moves into Tess's apartment and throws
herself headlong into her sister's life--and all its secrets.
Though
her family and the police see a grieving sister in denial, unwilling to
accept the facts, Bee uncovers the affair Tess was having with a
married man and the pregnancy that resulted, and her difficultly with a
stalker who may have crossed the line when Tess refused his advances.
Tess was also participating in an experimental medical trial that might
have gone very wrong. As a determined Bee gives her statement to the
lead investigator, her story reveals a predator who got away with
murder--and an obsession that may cost Bee her own life.
A thrilling story of fierce love between siblings, Sister is a suspenseful and accomplished debut with a stunning twist.
Love, Anthony
Olivia Donatelli’s dream of a “normal” life shattered when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. Understanding the world from his perspective felt bewildering, nearly impossible. He didn’t speak. He hated to be touched. He almost never made eye contact. And just as Olivia was starting to realize that happiness and autism could coexist, Anthony died.
Now she’s alone in a cottage on Nantucket, separated from her husband, desperate to understand the meaning of her son’s short life, when a chance encounter with another woman facing her own loss brings Anthony alive again for Olivia in a most unexpected way.
Beth Ellis’s entire life changed with a simple note: “I’m sleeping with Jimmy.” Fourteen years of marriage. Three beautiful daughters. Yet even before her husband’s affair, she had never felt so alone. Heartbroken, she finds the pieces of the vivacious, creative person she used to be packed away in a box in her attic. For the first time in years, she uncaps her pen, takes a deep breath, and begins to write. The young but exuberant voice that emerges onto the page is a balm to the turmoil within her, a new beginning, and an astonishing bridge back to herself.
In a piercing story about motherhood, autism, and love, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova offers us two unforgettable women on the verge of change and the irrepressible young boy whose unique wisdom helps them both find the courage to move on.
Neuroscientist and debut novelist Genova mines years of experience in
her field to craft a realistic portrait of early onset Alzheimer's
disease. Alice Howland has a career not unlike Genova's—she's an
esteemed psychology professor at Harvard, living a comfortable life in
Cambridge with her husband, John, arguing about the usual (making
quality time together, their daughter's move to L.A.) when the first
symptoms of Alzheimer's begin to emerge. First, Alice can't find her
Blackberry, then she becomes hopelessly disoriented in her own town.
Alice is shocked to be diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's (she had
suspected a brain tumor or menopause), after which her life begins
steadily to unravel. She loses track of rooms in her home, resigns from
Harvard and eventually cannot recognize her own children. The brutal
facts of Alzheimer's are heartbreaking, and it's impossible not to feel
for Alice and her loved ones, but Genova's prose style is clumsy and her
dialogue heavy-handed. This novel will appeal to those dealing with the
disease and may prove helpful, but beyond the heartbreaking record of
illness there's little here to remember.
Left Neglected
Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children—Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus.
Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son’s teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it’s a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe.
A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.
A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future.
Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny—her new, true life—may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.
The Secret KeeperDuring a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother.
Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past.
Dorothy’s story takes the reader from pre–WWII England through the blitz, to the ’60s and beyond. It is the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined. The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams and the unexpected consequences they sometimes bring. It is an unforgettable story of lovers and friends, deception and passion that is told—in Morton’s signature style—against a backdrop of events that changed the world.
Keeper of Lost Causes
Carl Mørck used to be one of Copenhagen’s best homicide detectives. Then a hail of bullets destroyed the lives of two fellow cops, and Carl—who didn’t draw his weapon—blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing he expects. But Department Q is a department of one, and Carl’s got only a stack of Copenhagen’s coldest cases for company. His colleagues snicker, but Carl may have the last laugh, because one file keeps nagging at him: a liberal politician vanished five years earlier and is presumed dead. But she isn’t dead … yet.
The Light Between the Oceans
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.
Thanks April! I know, I've totally done a 180 on my view about this stuff, but I also still see the value in it... like you, realtionship building has been the biggest "gain" for me. But, when I got to the point where I was putting whatever thought popped into my head on to twitter, I realized I needed to listen to the advice I give my kids, which is "you don't have to have EVERY thought in your head come out of your mouth" (or in this case, get typed on a keyboard).
A second factor was that I need(ed) to limit the things that I watch/read that get me riled up. There's a lot out there that can really piss me off if I let it, so I am choosing to extract myself from those situations in order to keep my (barely hanging on) sanity. I just felt that it was turning into tireless self-promotion, and frankly, I'm not that interesting :)
I love learning about people via Twitter and Facebook, and to know what they're up to, but when it turns into a love-fest with myself, I need to step back.
Of course, I won't stop altogether... but I need to be sure that I am RESPONDING more to other people, than just bathering on about "me".
BTW, you rock!