Book Review - Summer Rental

Nobody cures a bad reading slump like Mary Kay Andrews.

I was having one of those weeks. The kind where every book I opened was completely uninspiring. It was depressing. Then I got the happy email from the library informing me that Summer Rental was waiting for me. I knew things were gonna get better.

Mary Kay Andrews is no John Steinbeck. That's not meant as an insult. She's a fun Southern writer. There is no shame in that. Summer Rental is about a group of friends who rent a ramshackle beach house for a summer vacation. Normally I shy away from books about 'female friends reuniting...blah, blah, blah". It's a very tired fiction formula. But this book (mostly) avoids the cliches. The friends each have interesting life circumstances that don't feel contrived. There is a mystery roomate and a cute landlord. Seriously, what else could you need?

Quoted - Blue Like Jazz Edition

"The goofy thing about Christian faith is that you believe it and don't believe it at the same time. It isn't unlike having an imaginary friend. I believe in Jesus; I believe He is the Son of God, but every time I sit down to explain this to somebody I feel like a palm reader, like somebody who works at a circus or a kid who is always making things up or somebody at a Star Trek convention who hasn't figured out that the show isn't real."

- Donald Miller

Book Review - Black Heels to Tractor Wheels

I think I have mentioned how much I love The Pioneer Woman. I stumbled onto her blog while googling "Best chocolate cake". Not only did she have the best chocolate cake recipe, she had so much more. She shared so unapologetically about almost every aspect of her life that I felt like we were close friends even though we never met. She also got me in trouble. The Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) refers to her children as 'punks'. Obviously she loves her kids so 'punks' is not an insult, it's a term of endearment. I copied this habit of hers to disastrous consequences. Lesson learned...hopefully.

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels is the story of Ree's courtship and early marriage to Marlboro Man. It was originally published in chapter long installments on her website. She added some new material when she compiled the stories into this book. If you have never visited her website, you will still enjoy the book. Ree is hilarious and completely unassuming. She pokes lots of fun at herself which is my favorite hobby as you know.

Quoted - C.S. Lewis Edition

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

- C. S. Lewis

Book Review - Rescue

This is hard for me to admit. This book was the suck. Anita Shreve is one of my favorite authors. In fact, her novel Fortune's Rocks is on my top ten list. That's a hard list to land on people.

But something has gone awry. It's almost like this book was not even written by the same author. Rescue is about an EMT that meets a troubled woman following a car accident. They fall in love, marry and have a daughter. The woman is an alcoholic who eventually abandons them. The EMT raises his daughter alone. A near tragedy brings them all back together 15 years later. I can't really apologize for the 'spoilers' in this review because you can pretty much anticipate the entire plot by the time you have read the first twenty pages. Had this nonsense been written by a first time author, I guess you could give them the benefit of the doubt and hope for better things in the future. But this was written by an accomplished veteran novelist. There simply is no excuse for this pile of drivel produced by someone who has proved she can do so much more.

Quoted

They that know God will be humble; they that know themselves cannot be proud.

- John Flavel

The Way We Were (Are)

20 years ago I graduated from high school. I was apathetic, at best, about attending my class reunion. At my 10th, my group of friends ended up in the hotel lobby apart from the rest of the class. We were band nerds. We were used to being on the outside looking in. But years of maturity made us realize we kinda liked it on the outside.
So when my friend Kristena suggested that we have a mini-reunion with just the people we liked, I felt we had a genius solution. A few of us met at my house with a whole bunch of kids. (Yes, most of them were mine. What's your point?) We ate. We laughed. I said the phrase "I don't remember" around 1000 times. So much had not changed. Kristena still has the exact same hand gestures when she tells a story. Dawn still has the face of a teenager. (Wrinkle already dammit!) And Andy is still...well...Andy.

But many things have changed. Chris has two kids. (Who would have ever thought he would be a dad?) Inconceivable. And he's really good at it. And, for some reason that made me proud as if I had anything to do with it. Jason's voice is so deep now. When did that happen? Everybody else sounded the same but Jason sounds like he could sing bass with the Gaither Vocal Band or work as a DJ.

There were lots of our 'group' who couldn't attend but we went ahead and had a great time without them. The kids got along great. Loudly...but great. Dawn married the ultimate band nerd (He's a director!!!) so we bonded with him immediately.
I think we turned out pretty good. I had not seen these guys in a very long time but, though it is a cliche, it seemed like just yesterday that we were riding that school bus to a Friday night football game. I loved them then. I love them now. I can't wait twenty more years to see them again. I'm planning on no more than 5.

Quoted - Tozer Edition

"When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it solves a great deal of anxiety."

AW Tozer

Book Review - Kevin Leman Edition

I wasn't actually interested in having a new husband or new kids by Friday. I am always interested in having a new me by any day though. I read all three of these books in the same week. (They are short and easy to get through.) The author, Dr. Kevin Leman is a pychologist and a Christian. Here's all you need to know about the the first two books. If you want a new husband by Friday, don't demean him. Treat him like an adult and have lots of sex with him. To this advice I respnd with a hearty 'Duh'.



If you want to have a new kid by Friday, Dr Leman suggests that you tell your kids to do something once and then walk away. If they do it, great. If they don't, you allow them to experience the natural consequences. I'm sure he is right about this but I am personally fighting an uphill battle on this one. Raising two families of kids with different expectations of responsibility, politeness and behavior in general is not easy. And, pretty much, I suck at it.



Having a new you by Friday is a little more complicated. Dr Leman first identifies your personality type. Unfortunately, I don't fit neatly into any of his categories. I did identify a lot of other people's personality types which was actually pretty helpful. I spend too much of my time wondering why people do the stupid nonsense that they do. This information gave me much insight into answering those questions. The next step is identifying your birth order. This was easy. I am a textbook firstborn. Control freak, perfectionist...your basic nightmare. The interesting thing about this part was discovering how few of our combined children fit the category of their birth order. The last part of the process was thinking about specific childhood memories. This was quite illuminating for me. It's fodder for another post though...after I think about it for 15or so years. The thing I really like about Leman's approach is that he doesn't allow you to use personality or birth order or childhood experiences as a crutch. He wants you to identify them in order to see why you react to situations in the way that you do but also realize that you have the ability to change. A firstborn can lighten up. A lastborn can start acting responsibly.

I'm sure there are people who are completely happy with themselves. They like the way they look, act and think. If someone doesn't like them, they never internalize it. They blame the other person and move on.

I am not one of these people.

But I might be one by Friday...or possibly Saturday.

Quoted - Blue Like Jazz Edition

"The decision was simple once I asked myself, Is Jesus the Son of God, are we being held captive in a world run by Satan, a world filled with brokenness, and do I believe Jesus can rescue me from this condition?"

- Donald Miller

Stop the Madness

Lately I have spent a lot of time with some ladies who...how do I say this nicely?...seem to have more money than sense. You know the ones. They attend all these home parties that sell different nonsense. They not only attend, they buy mass quantities of this stuff and then decide to sell it themselves which leads to even more parties where they buy even more stuff. It seems they all eventually get bored with whatever they are selling and then move on to the next thing.

This is not a post in judgement of these women. It is a serious inquiry. I am desperate to know how these purchases are justified...if only in their own mind. For example, several years ago the big thing was pricey baskets. (I was a single, working mom at the time so no one invited me to these parties. Thank God.) I had an aunt who became obsessed with these friggin baskets. She had them everywhere. Here's my question. When you buy one or a dozen baskets that cost 300% more than any basket should reasonably cost, what are you thinking? Do you just love the basket and really what business it it of mine how you spend your money? Do you think you are going to create an heirloom? Are you planning to leave them to your kids? Because honestly investing that money in a pitiful savings account would have been a much better idea.

It seems the baskets were followed by a candle party craze. I missed that one entirely. This was followed by the scapbook, card making phenomenon that entranced every woman with the ability to take photos. I have nothing against scrapbooking or cardmaking. A lot of my friends love it. I have just always been too cheap to pay good money for...paper. The newest one I have been introduced to is embroidered bags. Even my 13 year old child was invited to one of these. The brochure features a backpack that you can get your initials embroidered on. It costs 86 dollars.

86 DOLLARS!?!?!?

Again, I am really not trying to be ugly here but who in their right mind pays 86 bucks for a backpack? I mean these parties are marketed toward the middle class. This is not some silly thing that Manhattan socialites are doing. This is targeted toward women who, in my experience, would normally be very prudent with their family finances. What is it about the idea of a 'party' that sends this type of woman off the deep end? Is it just peer pressure? And, if so, can we please stop it? I'm just wondering how many women are out there fighting with their husbands over money spent on cooking stones that they never use or paying high interest credit card rates on baskets they sold at a yard sale.

I'm just gonna stick with what I do best. Wasting Kevin's money on exercise equipment and diet programs.