the bassoon king

I still have six more books to post after this one which means that unless I double up, I will not be finishing in 2017. Likely, I won't double up and I won't end up finishing until February. C'est la vie.

Well, I present The Bassoon King.

"Leia, don't you know that's a clarinet and not a bassoon?" Well I didn't play bassoon in high school so this is the woodwind instrument that was available. Don't start with me!

The very first thing that surprised me about this book was how spiritual Rainn Wilson is. Is faith listed right there in the title of the book? Yes. Did I think he was going to discuss faith as in how much he has? No. You watch one television show and all of a sudden you think you know everything there is to know about Dwight K. Schrute, RIGHT?!

On people who wouldn't watch the American Office because they were fans of the British Office:
And, as for statement number two, when your loyalty to a handful of episodes of a brilliant TV show actually prevents you disdainfully from watching another version, something is wrong with you. Just check it out. Give it a gander. It's not gonna hurt you. You're not going to lose hipster street cred by saying, "Yeah, I checked out the NBC remake of The Office and I liked it/didn't like it."

This hit me 100% because of someone previously in my life who was dead set against watching How I Met Your Mother because it was "too much like Friends and wasn't made during the sitcom era". Like what in the actual fuck does that even mean?!

Rainn talked a lot about a lot of different things. It was all really interesting but I was more focused and interested in his acting career and his time on The Office. If you are a fan, I would recommend this book because it went into a lot of detail and it was a cool inside look.



Bears. Beets. Books.
Leia

merry christmas

Ah, yes. The year Santa had to eat some dirty ass cookies off the floor.

 Poor Piper! I was too focused on them smiling for the pictures that I had no idea those cookies were so close to the edge of the plate. She was absolutely heartbroken but here I am looking at the photo series for the hundredth time with tears in my eyes from laughter. And seriously, Kennedy trying to contain her laughter is so hilarious to me.

10 second rule.

Leia

the book thief

I actually felt quite horrible when I was scanning my shelves after putting away the book I read prior to this when my eyes fell on this book and I realized I had never read it. I got it for Christmas one year while I was in high school; likely the year that it was a best seller. Somehow it got shuffled to the point where it became a normal fixture in my collection and became out of sight. But voila! The Book Thief's time had come!

And guys, I have really enjoyed being extra with my book pics. It's great and I definitely forced Brendon to help me capture it.

Death tells us about the plight of Liesel Meminger during the rise of Nazi Germany in the late 1930's. Leisel has it rough. First she loses her brother and then is thrown into foster care during war times. Luckily she finds herself with a family that is on the right side of history and they fight for the Jew's and shelter one for many months on a promise that Hans (her foster father)had made years prior.

He was not well-educated or political, but if nothing else, he was a man who appreciated fairness. A Jew had once saved his life and he couldn't forget that. He couldn't join a party that antagonized people in such a way. Also, much like Alex Steiner, some of his most loyal customers were Jewish. Like many of the Jews believed, he didn't think the hatred could last, and it was a conscious decision not to follow Hitler. On many levels, it was a disastrous one.

How frightening that this mantra is something we're currently hearing the United States! But Hans? This man is GOLDEN. G O L D E N.

But Hans Junior wasn't finished. He stepped closer and said, "You're either for the Führer or against him - and I can see that you're against him. You always have been." Liesel watched Hans Junior in the face, fixated on the thinness of his lips and the rocky line of his bottom teeth. "It's pathetic - how a man can stand by an do nothing as a whole nation cleans out the garbage and makes itself great."

Prior to our current leadership I always questioned if I had grown up during segregation and such would I have been on the right side of things? If my government was eloquently telling me that people were bad and simply did not have the right to be equal would I have stood up or even thought that something was fucked up? I like to definitely think that I would have been. I like to think that I would have done the right thing. Listening to Voldemort speak confirms notions that I would've done the right thing.

This book was really great and I wish that I had read it sooner, but part of me is glad that I didn't read it until I was out of my teens and well into adulthood. It's heartbreaking and also hopeful. I would definitely recommend it.



Saumensch.
Leia

piper + the penny

You know how you can tell that you've been a parent for more than six years and are currently in the midst of your third year with your second kid? When Piper nonchalantly tells you that she ate a penny and you go to Google instead of the emergency room. I mean, really we've only had one trip to the emergency room ever but you get the gist. 

She and Kennedy were getting ready for bed when I get summoned. Kennedy just simply states, "Mom, Piper said she ate a penny." *major eye roll and sighs*

When I get upstairs, they've both tucked themselves in to Kennedy's bed and thus my interrogation can begin.

Me: "Piper, did you really eat a penny?"

Piper: *slowly nods her head*

Me: "Are you sure it was a penny?"

Piper: *slowly nods her head*

Kennedy: "Well, maybe it was candy and she just thought it was a penny."

Me: "Did you chew it?"

Piper: *slowly shakes her head*

Me:

 

So needless to say, the internet told us that since penny's are fairly small and not sharp (and since she wasn't choking) that we just need to watch for it. And honestly, I'm still not even fairly certain this actually transpired! Yes, she told me what she did, but she's a bright kid and she knows what a penny is and that they certainly are not food. We'll see, I guess! Tonight at 8:00pm will mark 48 hours after said ingestion of questionable coin.

I'll make sure she gets seconds at all meals, now.

Leia

the woman in cabin 10

Tried to catch up but I'm actually managing to fall further behind.

Ah, The Woman in Cabin 10. Yet another book I didn't read the synopsis on because I love Ruth Ware and when I saw the book I didn't even care to know what it was about, just that I wanted to read it and it was my personal treat after hosting and making it through Piper's birthday. What did this get me? I thought it was going to be about another mystery in the woods. But lo and behold they meant Cabin 10 as in a cruise ship cabin. AND DUH, LEIA! LOOK AT THE COVER A LITTLE CLOSER. Clearly those are fucking ocean waves.

Ruth Ware did not disappoint. Is Lo crazy? Is she sane? Who is who and what the hell is going on aboard this vessel!? It was somewhat reminiscent of The Girl on the Train in that it was truly hard to pick a perspective to believe as reality. The ending got a little rushed with the details and the layers, but without getting too Stephen King and going on for fourteen years I think it worked.

Generally if you are a fan of suspense-thrillers I think you would enjoy this. Also, check out In a Dark, Dark Wood. Not sure which I liked more. I need to pick up The Lying Game soon, as well.



Richard Branson meets the most dangerous game.
Leia

conversations with piper

Haha, this kid never ceases to amaze me while simultaneously pissing me off. I love her to death but lately she has been such a smart aleck. Two of her favorite phrases are "fiiiiiiiiine" and "just kidding". Would you like some examples?

^^ turd

Piper: "Brr, I'm cold!"

Me: "Would you like me to go get your house coat?"

Piper: "Um, no."
Me: "Hold on, let me just show you."

*shows house coat*

Piper: "Um, no."

Me: "You'll be warm if you wear it, though!"

Piper: "Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine."

Me: "Okay, it's time to stop what you're doing."
Piper: "No, I'm okay."

Me: "Do you need a spank?"

Piper: "Oh, I'm just kidding!"

Well, Pipes, that's now how "just kidding" works.

Leia

fight club 2

EXTRA behind on posting books for this year. And currently I'm *ahead* of my Goodreads reading challenge and on par to read more than my goal! Also, I'm officially in a book club now! More on that later, though.

Okay, so Fight Club 2! Somehow I missed all whisperings and talkings of this book. I stumbled across it randomly and sent a snap to Brendon because of how excited I was, and he surprised me with it a few days later. Such a sweet husband.

In my haste, I didn't even really read the synopsis or do much research so first off, I didn't even realize it was a graphic novel. You would think the 5 names or the beautifully illustrated cover would have been an indicator. Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorite authors. Some of ideas are lost on me and go right over my head or don't come full circle, and this was no exception. While reading his books my mind is constantly turning, and I think I sometimes will unnecessarily focus on something that I think is supposed to be important and then miss the actual twist or meaning.

This article was nice to read after finishing. I would definitely recommend if you are a fan of his franchise; specifically Fight Club.



The first rule of Fight Club.
Leia

first term conferences

Conferences. Probably one of the most exciting things about having school age kids amirite..............?  All of us just holding our breath and crossing our fingers hoping they haven't told some off the wall story about us at home that could potentially brand us as psychotic parents. SO FUN. Extra proud of my girl, though. To think about her maybe only being in kindergarten this year makes my brain hurt. She is above current grade level for reading (she's where they want her to be at the end of the year) and above grade level for mathematics (WHAT). It makes me happy that she's not struggling like I so often imagine happening with our decision to take the early kindergarten recommendation last year. The kid looks forward to school and doesn't complain much. Except after breaks or if she's not particularly excited about one of her specials. This year the problem class is Spanish and she's actually enjoying technology!

Me: "How was school today?"

Kennedy: "Horrible."

Me: "Horrible?! Why?"

Kennedy: "Just kidding. It was great."

The kid is a card, I tell ya.

Leia

halloween

Better late than never, right? Posting has been on the absolute back burner. I'll think about posting, write it down, and then when I don't get to it I add it to my ever growing list of "blog posts" in my notes.

So, Halloween. A month ago. Typing it seems crazy because it seems like just yesterday I was stressed about having ran out of the glitter spray paint I needed to finish their costumes. Can you believe we still have candy left after all this time?

Award for the cutest Halloween decorations definitely goes to this household! Since we've moved here they've done it each year. Wondering how long this family has resided here and wonder how many other people look forward to it.

Initially Kennedy and Piper wanted to go as Moana and Tamatoa. Yeah, the big shiny singing crab. I was excited at first, and then I just honestly had to tell them that it was going to be too much work. Not one of my proudest moments, but hey. We then decided on Poppy and Branch. But then when I saw the forecast I wanted to find something that would be easy to throw together and be easily altered if the snow started falling (which it was predicted to do).

So, fleecey unicorns it is!

 ^^ "Look at my tail, guys!"

Was able to use fabric that was leftover from their pinata costumes last year for their manes and tails, but do you think I could find plain sweatshirts and sweatpants anywhere? OF COURSE NOT. I was able to turn this set inside out and sew the extra fabric from hemming over the tags on the shirts. Added a little spray paint and roll up a paper towel tube? Voila! We've got ourselves some unicorns y'all! 

So we ultimately ended up with three unicorns and one Poppy! I was lucky with the color choices I picked because both Kennedy and Piper already had coordinating fleece jackets that we threw on over top before heading out. It was cold but it wasn't raining or snowing like it has in years in the past. We went down almost every street in our neighborhood. Rachel and I may or may not have kept warm with apple cider laced with caramel vodka. And side note. When did hot hands hand warmers become such garbage? Bought a handful from the checkout lane and they barely got warm!

Like I said.. still eating candy.

Leia

kennedy grace is six

It's been less than two weeks since Kennedy's big day but if you asked I would swear it's been at least three months since then. Time has been ridiculous lately and seems to be dragging on while simultaneously speeding past me. 

For the second year in a row Kennedy requested a horse party and initially I tried to convince her to pick a different theme BUT, the girl is so utterly obsessed with horses that I just rolled with it.

I didn't do much for documenting her party because as usual, it's more fun and easy to just be in the moment and celebrating with them. The only difference this year was the addition of a pinata! Thanks, Rachel!

So in lack of party pictures, here is a trip down memory lane.

  And then I basically skipped three years because I was getting emotional as hell.

Truly hard to believe that I met this kid six years ago. She has grown into quite the brilliant young lady and I am proud to be her mom. There surely are moments that we bump heads and countless times where she tries to test me and acts just like the smart ass I am, myself.

She's my girl!

Leia

it

This book was #15. And guys when I tell you this book was frightening.. it had me SHOOK. I was literally more terrified reading the book than I was watching either film. I know, I know how does the original even qualify as a horror movie.

"He wanted to tell them that those dead boys who had lurched and shambled their way down the spiral staircase had done something worse than frighten him: they had offended him.

Offended, yes. It was the only word he could think of, and if he used it they would laugh -- they liked him, he knew that, and they had accepted him as one of them, but they would still laugh..
..You can live with fear, I think, Stan would have said if he could. Maybe not forever, but for a long, long time. It's offense you maybe can't live with, because it opens up a crack inside your thinking, and if you look down into it you see there are things that live down there, and they have little yellow eyes that don't blink, and there's a stink down in that dark, and after awhile you think maybe there's a whole other universe down there..."

This is one of the first (and unfortunately the only one I could easily find after losing my quote list) quotes that really made me go "whoa." Because I totally can totally relate when your mind starts to wander after you've seen a scary movie; that feeling when the hair on the back of your neck stands up or when you aren't quite sure if you really saw something out the corner of your eye.

I had more scary parts picked out and I planned on doing a big comparison between the book, the original movie, and the new movie but I'm like nah it's been done a million or more times already on the internet and I loved the book and movie in their own ways. Between this book and 11/22/63 I have really loved Stephen King and I think my reading list next year is going to be solely composed of his books.



You'll float too.
Leia

bargain books at barnes & noble

You know when you attempt to run to the book store and back on your 30 minute lunch break and end up back at work almost 15 minutes late because the bargain section was slamming with awesome material and you slowly browsed all the rows even when you didn't see the book you specifically went for but ended up coming out three books richer regardless?

Asking for a friend who is interested in keeping her job.

Leia

yleo 102: essential oils and the effect they've had on my life

Placebo, placebo, gazebo. If you still haven't seen IT you need to get to your local cinema STAT.

Essential oils. Do I hate them? No. Do I love them? Kinda. Do I think they work like the people who make money off them and anti-pharm people* insist they do? No, it's a placebo folks!

*I hate how big pharma has such a large hold on things in the world but we need them for some pretty major things and I cannot kick them in the nuts.

I desperately needed sleep and so did Piper so I finally broke down and bought the Young Living starter kit because of how many people (i.e. rich blogger moms and hippies) swear by them. Guys, almost to this day I can still count the number of times Piper has slept through the night. I refuse to comment how things are currently going because you all know how well the universe works. Did I think oils were going to fix the problem over night? No. I mean, deep down I hoped they would because of the miracles I kept hearing from others. Did I think that after a few days or maybe up to a few weeks we would see a change? ABSOILUTELY. Har har.

I'm telling you. People claim that you can rub oils on your belly to cure and aid in digestion. WHAT. Natural things like lavender that have been around forever are things that I was looking at. Peppermint oil for nausea? SURE, you're actually ingesting it and my tried and true BFF when it comes to an upset stomach is "spicy gum". Can you actually imagine how sick we would be all the time if our bodies absorbed everything that came into contact with our skin? Likely we'd be ill, and even more likely we'd be dead.

Who know who else is dead? The pilgrims and settlers that lived before us but died due to their diseases and other 'simple' illnesses that could not be cured by burning tree bark infused with patchouli in their living room. Don't even try to bring up Native American witch doctors because I know what they could be capable of but the pilgrims literally ruined that for them.

Could you guess by this point that the lavender and other mixes didn't work on Piper? We went through an entire bottle of lavender with no improvements.

So then I tried them for other things. Household cleaners are the other major use I see people boasting about. But at the end of the day coconut oil and a few drops of oil are not going to get rid of any nasty flu germs or salmonella off your counter top after preparing chicken fajitas for dinner. Same with carpet deodorizer. We had an unfortunate incident with one of our cats peeing in the house. The carpet has since been removed and replaced with hardwood, but all the mixtures I tried failed. And when you think about it, and no matter how many times Brendon said it, you are not breaking down what caused the odor but simply masking it. Yeeeeuck and it didn't even do that.

But you know what? They make the house smell great. I love having them simply for air fresheners. A damn expensive air freshener, but hey. I've already went and bought them and there is nothing I can do about it now. Will I be buying more? Yeah, an off brand version from Amazon if I feel so inclined.

A sad and oily tale.

Leia

this is us: season 2

As so many of you probably know, This Is Us started it's second season a few weeks ago.

Since I'm not a fan of spoilers it's hard to really talk about a show that is currently on air. So, all I can say is that I don't think anything they've alluded to this season is going to be the cause of Jack's death. Ultimately I think it's going to go back a few seasons and have something to do with a car accident. They've segued so many times and shown so many cliff hangers or serious moments in the car. AND his supposed 'personal effects' in the car with Rebecca are all in tact and not burnt. Can't tell if their cinematic story telling tricks have me hung up or not.

I don't know. When it was clear they weren't going to show anything in last night's episode Brendon simply said, "I hope they show his death before this show gets canceled." And I can totally see it being like that Pretty Little Liar's show where they keep pulling plot ideas and twists out of a hat and keep the show going and going. I mean I HOPE they don't because I enjoy this show and don't want it to get stupid.

*sits through 40 TJ Maxx commercials*
Leia

rockstar vs boyfriend

You know that feeling when you've been wearing boyfriend jeans for the past 6-12 months and you finally order a different style in the same size that is tried and true and they are slightly tighter than you're used to and give that 'way-too-high-to-still-be-considered-love-handles belly roll' but you really love them and you don't want to return them for the next size up and maybe this slight tightness will be the push you need to start really trying to get in shape so you keep them knowing you're going to hold them closed with a ponytail holder to smooth the stomach lines?

Me either, asking for a friend.

Leia

a wrinkle in time

Fourteen was A Wrinkle in Time. Lately most of the books I've picked up have been due to the fact that there is an imminent screen adaptation coming. Oh well! 

With this one there was literally no way I was going to resist. When I saw the cast I might've fan girl screamed. Not just internally.

 Mindy Kaling, Reese Witherspoon and mother fucking OPRAH?! Erm, dream team if you ask me! Collectively they are a writer, have book clubs (one that has an emblem you're probably familiar with) and their OWN television network and can seemingly do no bad to anyone. The choice to read this book was almost a no brainer.

I'm not sure what age group this book is really for and unsure if it's assigned in elementary or middle for reading. It was a good book but it definitely escalated quickly. This is something that could easily be determined from the size of the book. Looking at the stance of a younger person reading it's probably better that things kept rapidly happening. Attention span and memory retention would be factors for a good quick story with lots of high points.

"Mrs. Whatsit?" Aunt Beast was puzzled. "Oh, child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the effect of extreme complication."

Haha, if there was ever a quote about communication that spoke to my soul, it's that one.



Excited for the film!
Leia

piper hazel is three

Okay so we're almost ten days into Piper's third year and I thought I would finally share some pictures from her birthday.

This is the first year that it worked out where her birthday was on a weekend so it was the first year we had her party on her birthday! It was so nice doing it this way. We woke up and had the morning to be special with her and she got to open her gifts, and then she got to celebrate with everyone in the afternoon.

She did not request much of anything besdies pink and blue balloons and Paw Patrol. If you know me, you know how much I hate character themed stuff for kids, but hey; Piper goes crazy for that stuff and it was after all, her day. We set her up with some Paw Patrol balloons (along with her requested pink and blue ones) and a t-shirt with her favorite pup and she was ready to party.

The menu was simple and was almost entirely made up of salads. Pasta salad, taco salad, broccoli salad and there were my usual meatballs and other snacks. The guest list was small but had the most children ever in attendance. As the years go on I'm happy for the laid back calmness of our gatherings. I am dreading the day they want to invite their whole class.

Then it was off to presents and cake! The very first thing Piper opened was a pair of slippers. Her 'slips'. She kept them on for the remainder of the party, throughout the evening, slept in them, and didn't take them off until dinner the next day. She took about forty years to open the rest after showing everything to all her grandmas every single time. I am so grateful for everyone that came and for the gifts she got. She genuinely loved everything she got.

I honestly just can't believe she is three already. And I know damn well I'm going to be saying this each and every year after this, too. When Kennedy turned three I felt like she was so grown up. Granted, I feel like Piper is grown up, too but I still feel like she is very much a baby. Maybe it's because she's my youngest and still technically my baby.

And also I've really come to realize that it's hard to document events like this when all you want to do is be in on the action.

Threenager.

Leia