Just finished 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter'. Fabulous book! Thought provoking, moves quickly well-written. Surprising.
Other titles I've read recently and highly recommend: The Kite Runner (will read again several more times); The Book Seller of Kabul;The Red Tent; Bag of Bones (my second time. . .read again right after Lisey's Story); The Orchid Thief; The Seamstress; Night; Running with Scissors; Life and Death in Shanghai; Enemies, A Love Story; Perfume; The Quiet American; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress; Angels & Demons. I'm now reading 'Snow' by Orhan Pamuk. I'll let you know but it's won a Nobel Prize so what can you say!
More later. . . .
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Happiness
This week my husband told me he was happy. This may not seem like an event worth writing about but what made it special was he went on to say 'The last time I remember really feeling happy was the months prior to 911.'
Happiness is not a feeling everyone has, and should not be taken lightly by those lucky enough to feel happy. How many of us felt the world pulled out from under us after that day? Our son was 15 at the time and I remember coming in after being at work and finding him on the computer, crying.
He looked at me through his tears, not embarrassed being caught crying as he would have been a month earlier, saying 'Mom, what's going to happen now? . . . I've been looking at Nostradamus prophecies . . . .some of us were talking about what happened and someone said this was predicted by prophets. Is this the end?'
My reassurances left me with my own doubts about how life would be here in this wonderful country now touched by so much hate and destruction.
Now 6 years later, we all seem to be still struggling, us our neighbors, friends. Economically, personally. Our lives have all changed since 911. Gas prices are unmanageable for so many families already stretched to the point of not being able to pay bills. Foreclosures are at an all time high. Real estate in our 'golden crescent' neighborhood, sit month after month unsold, where previously they would be on the off the market in weeks. Bankruptcies, hoped to be curtailed by new legislation, have not slowed down one bit.
But we still strive to be happy. . . to find a silver lining. To look back and say, we're a bit better off this year than last, aren't we?
This is where I am. This is where my husband is. We think of ourselves as unique and different from our neighbors but truth be told, we're just exactly like them.
Happiness is not a feeling everyone has, and should not be taken lightly by those lucky enough to feel happy. How many of us felt the world pulled out from under us after that day? Our son was 15 at the time and I remember coming in after being at work and finding him on the computer, crying.
He looked at me through his tears, not embarrassed being caught crying as he would have been a month earlier, saying 'Mom, what's going to happen now? . . . I've been looking at Nostradamus prophecies . . . .some of us were talking about what happened and someone said this was predicted by prophets. Is this the end?'
My reassurances left me with my own doubts about how life would be here in this wonderful country now touched by so much hate and destruction.
Now 6 years later, we all seem to be still struggling, us our neighbors, friends. Economically, personally. Our lives have all changed since 911. Gas prices are unmanageable for so many families already stretched to the point of not being able to pay bills. Foreclosures are at an all time high. Real estate in our 'golden crescent' neighborhood, sit month after month unsold, where previously they would be on the off the market in weeks. Bankruptcies, hoped to be curtailed by new legislation, have not slowed down one bit.
But we still strive to be happy. . . to find a silver lining. To look back and say, we're a bit better off this year than last, aren't we?
This is where I am. This is where my husband is. We think of ourselves as unique and different from our neighbors but truth be told, we're just exactly like them.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
My first blog ever
Well here I am in the Midwest, always felt our state was more east than midwest, but what do I know as I sit here in the Ohio Valley.
My first attempt to blog and am not quite sure what to say at this point.
Our minds come together so often in this country. Watch the news, see the shootings, despair, cry and wish for better days. That has been heavy on my mind lately. It reminded me of 911 and the exact spot I was standing, what I was wearing, who I was with. The inability to grasp the true nature of what had happened in our beloved country. You do know, no matter how bad our politics get, the homelessness, the state of our schools, the fact that we have groups of people in our midst that are intent on killing each other, we live in the greatest country in the world? I wanted to kiss the ground the last time I came home from overseas.
We are spoiled, yes, we are.
We have not had to endure the hardships our parents and grandparents lived, loved and tried to laugh through during the depression and World Wars.
draft
My first attempt to blog and am not quite sure what to say at this point.
Our minds come together so often in this country. Watch the news, see the shootings, despair, cry and wish for better days. That has been heavy on my mind lately. It reminded me of 911 and the exact spot I was standing, what I was wearing, who I was with. The inability to grasp the true nature of what had happened in our beloved country. You do know, no matter how bad our politics get, the homelessness, the state of our schools, the fact that we have groups of people in our midst that are intent on killing each other, we live in the greatest country in the world? I wanted to kiss the ground the last time I came home from overseas.
We are spoiled, yes, we are.
We have not had to endure the hardships our parents and grandparents lived, loved and tried to laugh through during the depression and World Wars.
draft
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