Seriously? Can you handle the cuteness?

Flash back about 10 years ago...

I am at my cousin Tosha's house.  We are looking at scrapbooks.  This is during my scrapbook diva period where every event was faithfully documented.   Tosha had just given me the most appropriate magnet that said, "IF IT ISN'T IN THE SCRAPBOOK IT DIDN'T HAPPEN".   I had just switched to the new 12 x 12 format for layouts and I was feeling GOOD about it all. My goal was always to stay caught up within 3 months, and I was pretty successful at it.
 

Tosha shows me her scrapbooks.  She is also using the 12 x 12 format but rather than doing full page spreads she is using a system where you slide pictures into sheet protectors which are divided into 4x6 slots.  One of the slots can be used for an embellished title or journaling card.
 

I remember thinking very smug and judgemental thoughts.... that while this was fine for HER there was no way I was going to scrapbook like that. It was such a CHEATER way to scrapbook.
 

Flash forward 7 years

 I am years behind on my scrapbooks. I have plenty of pictures and plenty of time and plenty of supplies but no willpower.  I love the creative side of it all but it just seems like TOO MUCH.

I am talking about scrap booking with my dear friend Ker-Bear. She is THE Scrapbook Goddess of the Universe that not only faithfully cut/pasted/embellished her own family history but also the history of several friends and their families.  Every page is seriously amazingly awesome.  She tells me about something called Project 365.  I'm vaguely interested until she mentions the name of the creator, BECKY HIGGINS.
 

I KNOW this name. I was a faithful subscriber to Creating Keepsakes magazine and Becky Higgins was a contributing editor there. I could pick our her layouts from across a crowded room and often mimicked her clean simple style.  She had recently left the magazine to strike out on her own (and quite frankly the magazine was never the same to the point that I didn't even renew this year).   Well apparently Becky had started her own business and has developed a simple, effective way of scrap booking using (you guessed it) sheet protectors divided into sections.  Oh how the universe has a way of humbling us.....
 

In 2010 I join in with Kerry who has already completed a year of Project 365.  With about 90% success I attempt to take a picture EVERY SINGLE DAY of 2010.  Some days are exciting.  Some days are pathetic.  I remember Ker talking about taking a picture of her furnace and the furnace repair man as she was so desperate for something DIFFERENT to document.

The idea is so simple... take a picture and slide it into the appropriate sleeve.  Write a few words on a journaling card and add that to the book.  DONE. No guilt. No stress.

What is so simple turned into something so surprisingly wonderful.  The kids LOVED it.  They pulled this album out more than any I've ever made.  Instead of just documenting the supposedly "big" stuff I end up documenting our ACTUAL lives without the fluff / posed pictures /artificial reality that can come with traditional scrap booking.
 

I take a break in 2011.  It is a mistake.  The kids miss it. I miss it.  2012 comes around and I am ready with my camera.  Instead of being called Project 365 it is now called Project Life.  Becky's new motto is "CULTIVATE A GOOD LIFE AND RECORD IT".  I still try to take a picture a day, but I focus more on a layout a week rather than a picture a day.
 

I pick the TURQUOISE EDITION for 2012.  I buy the actual paper kit and filler cards but then decide I want to be able to type my journaling so I buy the digital kit.  And I seriously love it.  The kids are back to pulling out the album.  People come over and want to see it.  We are back to documenting the REAL Sheffer family.



This year I have chosen the SEAFOAM collection (a portion of which is pictured below).  The album has not come into stock yet, but I have purchased the digital kit. Isn't it wonderful?   However I have gone kinda nuts and purchased the digital versions of the new OLIVE collection, the CLEMENTINE edition, and all the new childhood kits. 

 

I am excited to do even more with the digital stuff and do things like adding text and etc directly to some of the pictures...

 

 

I plan to post a layout each week on my OTHER blog.... which is at www.shefferfam.blogspot.com

 

 

If you want to check our more Becky Higgins awesomeness, go to her blog at www.BECKYHIGGINS.COM

 



2012 in books

The year is over.

The last book I read in 2012 was:

Matched by Ally Condie / YA / ****
I've read this book before.... I received the trilogy as a gift for Christmas and felt I needed to re-read the first two before I read the third book.  I liked it even better this time. 

This brings my total for the year to 126 books that I read and actually wrote down.  I know there are more .... in fact just tonight I remembered one I'd read in September and hadn't counted. But anywho.... the number 126 is close enough.

This was the first year of my new rating system.  I feel like I am a pretty tough rater, and felt a bit like I was overly negative.   I went through my list to see how many books I'd given each rating for.

As you can see, I gave 90 of the 126 books a rating of THREE or higher.  So I guess I'm not THAT tough.

I did only give FIVE books a rating of 4.5 (City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, and The Grey Wolf Throne ) and THREE books a perfect score of 5 (Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Graceling).

Here are my awards:
The best book I read all year: "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" 
Most anticipated book:  "The Crimson Crown" by Cinda Williams Chima
Most disappointing book: "The Casual Vacancy" by J.K.Rowling


I didn't do a reading challenge in 2012 and I don't think I'll do one this year either, unless I find the "right" one.   Darren gave me a Kindle this Christmas, so I suspect a lot of what I read will be what I can find for free on pioneer.utah.gov.  I'm always looking for something great to read, so send me your recommendations!

I don't know why I set News Years Resolutions.... I don't know that I've every really KEPT any of them. Like EVER.

But every year at this time I get excited for that perceived "fresh start".  And each year I get honestly deep-down excited to think that this is "THE YEAR" that I'm going to achieve perfection. 

I do have to laugh when I see the graphics like the one above that basically outline every single resolution that I set every year.  But rather than making me discouraged it just makes me realize that I'm human... and that real change is difficult.

I have many roles in my life right now.  Here are some of them:

ROLES
Mother
Wife
Mother
Daughter
Sister
Friend
Lifelong learner
Community Member/Citizen
Ward member
Visiting teacher
Family Historian
Daughter of God

I record these on every page of my planner to help me try and stay on track. The days seem to go so swiftly. It is easy for the weeks and months to just slip away.  And frankly, I'm getting older.  I obviously should have more time now that I don't have babies to change and little ones to closely watch. It is strange to me that I don't accomplish more than I do.  Part of it is that my priorities have shifted.  But another part is that my energy simply isn't what it used to be.

HERE ARE MY GOALS/PROJECTS/DESIRES FOR THE YEAR:

GOAL:  Regain control of my finances. This year was a tough one. We went backwards rather than forwards. It was a huge cause of stress.  I have made a strict budget and I'm sticking to it.
REWARD:  A family cruise in October

GOAL: Make exercise a part of my life. Eat better - not only am I chubby, my blood pressure is getting too high. Time to do better.
SPECIFICS: Exercise 3X per week minimum for the entire year. Keep a food diary.  Prepare to run a 5K.
REWARD: Feeling great on our family trip in October

PROJECT:  Index 5200 names on FamilySearch.org
PROJECT: Start collecting verifying records on ancestors
PROJECT: Complete another year of Project Life and post it on family blog
PROJECT: Make every recipe in the 2nd/5th Ward cookbook and blog it
PROJECT: Read the Book of Mormon in one sitting.
PROJECT: Help E2 earn her Young Womanhood award
PROJECT: Deep clean and refresh every wall, light fixture, baseboard, drawer, surface in the entire house
PROJECT: Purchase Photoshop and learn to use it.
PROJECT: Get control of all our documents. Get them scanned, filed, backed up,
PROJECT: Help N earn every Webelos activity badge and all of the Activity belt loops by November

DESIRES:  Stay in better contact with my sisters and friends
DESIRES:  Increase the amount of service I give
. 
Wish me luck!

1) The Kingmaker's Daughter (The Cousins' War) by Philippa Gregory / A / ***1/2
I love historical fiction.... in fact I think one of the main reasons I got such a good grade in my college history classes was because I'd read so much of it.  Philippa Gregory does a great job thoroughly researching a time in history and then making it come alive.  After reading this book I went right to the internet to find out what else I could read about "The War of the Roses". This story is about the lives of the two daughters of Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick.  He is the most powerful man in England, and has just succeeded in getting the young and moldable Edward IV crowned as King.  Richard does not have an heir, but he does have a thirst for power.  His primary goal in life is to get both of his daugthers on thrones, no matter the cost.  What follows is the true story of intrigue, espionage, betrayal, and the testing of all family ties.  I can't wait to read the next book in the series.
2)
The Kitchen House: A Novel by Kathleen Grissom / A / **
A wealthy southern plantation owner and sea-captain brings home an orphaned Irish girl from his latest voyage. Her parents had died during the crossing, and he indentures the girl as their passage had not been paid in full. She is raised by his kitchen slave, who also happens to be his illegitimate daughter.  The story starts out fairly straightfoward as it tells of the childhood of a little Irish girl being raised as a slave, but gets fairly convoluted as she ends up marrying the Sea-Captain's son and becomes mistress of the house.  The book is not very well written... at times the main character is empathetic and resilient while the next hundred pages she is an opium addict abandoning her own child.  It make the story rather unsatisfying.
3) Gone by Michael Grant / YA / ***
This is a Sci-Fi story of a town built near a nuclear power plant.  Several of the children start developing abnormal powers, which they hide from those around them.  One fall day the adults of the town (everyone over age 14) suddenly disappear.  The town is enclosed by a inpenetratable force field.  The resulting story is a little "Lord of the Flies"-ish as the surviving children work to establish a new society.  This story was just so-so but really had a the potential of being awesome and a great future movie, especially with today's interest in dystopian literature. There were too many underlying themes that distracted from the story. That being said, I do plan on reading the others.

4) The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling / A / *
I really really wanted to like this book.  In fact the only reason I kept slogging through each un-engaging page is due to the deep respect I have for J.K.Rowling.  It took me forever to read this book. It was bogged down with unneccesary details and made ugly by needless foul language.  To me this is another example of an editor out there being to afraid to tell the most famous living author in the world that the book really isn't that good.  If I look at the book as a character sketch ( a very detailed character sketch) of a group of people living in a town in England, that is great, but I ended up not caring about a single one of them.  Maybe that is talent in and of itself....  it has to actually be pretty difficult to write every single character in a way that makes you not like them.
5) Hunger: A Gone Novel by Michael Grant / YA / ***
This is the next book after "Gone".  Food is running out.  Children are dying from accidents, negligence, and now malnourishment.  The tenuous society that has been established is breaking down.   Several different  groups are fighting for power of the food supply. In the meantime, more mutant powers are manifesting and a dark evil force is attempting to gain power.  Once again, not an exceptionally written book but I still want to find out what happens next.
6) Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock / YA / ****
Wowzer. This book threw me for a loop. It is told from the point of view of Carrie, an eight year old girl living in extreme poverty in North Carolina.  Her mother is mentally ill and her step-father regulary abuses Carrie and her little sister, Emma.  They are regularly dirty, hungry, and seen as outcasts by their school mates.  The book also hints of sexual abuse of Emma.  This may sound like another heart-wrenching gut-jerker, but this story is different in the way it concludes.  This review from Amazon says it best: "Me & Emma differentiates itself with a spectacular finish, shocking the reader and turning the entire story on its head. Through several twists and turns the reader learns that things are not quite the way our narrator led us to believe and everything crescendos in a way that (like all good thrillers) immediately makes you want to go back and read the whole book again from the start".
7) Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard / A / **
This book has been chosen for our book-group read for February.  I am excited as our hubbies are invited.  As the title suggests, it tells the events leading up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. I learned a lot and found it quite interesting. It wasn't really well written but was engaging.
8) .

The Shoemaker's Wife: A Novel by Adriana Trigiani / A / **

This story has the unique honor of being the first book I read on my new Kindle that my sweetheart got me for Christmas.  Ironically it is likely the last book I'll read on my new Kindle that my sweetheart got me for Christmas because I've already lost the power cord so I cannot recharge it.  I checked this book out for free from pioneer.utah.gov.  Very cool.
The book was just ho-hum. I like this author as her stories are fresh, witty, and meaningful. I was not far into this book when I started to realize that this must be a story about some of the author's relatives as there was absolutely no plot other than following two people over the course of several years.    It was sweet.... but I wouldn't recommend it.

1) Town Like Alice (Vintage International) Publisher: Vintage by Nevil Shute / A / ** 1/2

This book was read by my book group for September. For being about a young woman surviving a Japanese death march during WWII, it is actually quite light hearted and non-depressing (is that even a word?).  The story is told with grace and fortitude and even includes a bit of romance as an Australian soldier risks his life to help her during her ordeal.  If the book would have ended with her return to the village where she spent her captivity and the resulting search for the soldier, it would have been a good thing. The story after that lost focus and drug on a bit.  But I learned a lot and found it enjoyable.  The story was oddly written from the perspective of her elderly lawyer which made the honeymoon scenes oddly disturbing.

 

2)

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Favorite quote:  “#$%* you,' Samuel said as he stole the ball, drove down the court, and went in for a two-handed, rattle-the-foundations, ratify-a-treaty, abolish-income-tax, close-the-uranium-mines monster dunk.” 

I read this book as it was by the same author that wrote "The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in Heaven" (which I would love to pick for my book group choice as it has been my favorite book I read so far this year but I can't in good conscience choose it as it has too many bad words). While the writer's stories are full of Native Americans suffering poverty, alcoholism, and the weight of a tragic history, the stories are so much more than that.  They resonate with honesty. They are poetic.  They speak of friendship, family, and loyalty. 

3)

The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel by Sarah Addison Allen / YA / *1/2
Juvenile. Groan inducing.  Shallow.  And the most alarming thing? This book has a four and a 1/2 out of five star rating on Amazon.com.

4)

Partials by Dan Wells / YA / ***

Favorite quote: “Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don't. It's like learning a foreign language: You can think about the words all you want, but you'll never be able to speak it until you suck up your courage and say them out loud.”

 

You know I love dystopian literature.  In this story, a weaponized virus has reduced the population of the world by 99% with the surviving 1% having an unexplained immunity.  New babies do not survive, so the youngest child is now 14 years old.  The survivors lives in protected barricades scattered across the globe.  The story tells the tale of a group of teens trying to solve the problem of the zero birth rate and thus save the future of the human race. They soon discover there is more to the story than the virus.   It is humorous, suspenseful, a bit predictable, but still an enjoyable read. And it's actually DYSTOPIAN instead of pretending to be.  I love this haunting paragraph.... 

“When she fell asleep, she dreamed of death-- not just for her, not just for her species, but for every living thing she had ever known. The earth was flat and brown, a field of dirt as barren as the moon, a single road stretching in the distance. the last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. Then they disappeared, and there was nothing left but nothing.” 

5)

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg / YA / ** 1/2

My friend Ker-Bear would love this book solely for all the Beatle references. The main character is even named Penny Lane.  She has sworn off boys and dating during High School in response to the poor treatment received by herself and her friends. Soon other jilted friends join her in the "Lonely Hearts Club".  The story is a bit cheesy and obvious but did emphasize the importance of having friends that accept you as who you are.  And of course it had the fun twist of Penny falling for a pretty awesome guy and facing the possible consequence of getting kicked out of her own club....

 

6)

The Seven Tales of Trinket by Shelley Moore Thomas / JF / ** 1/2

From goodreads:

Guided by a tattered map, accompanied by Thomas the Pig Boy, and inspired by the storyteller’s blood that thrums through her veins, eleven-year-old Trinket searches for the seven stories she needs to become a bard like her father, who disappeared years before. She befriends a fortune-telling gypsy girl; returns a child stolen by the selkies to his true mother; confronts a banshee and receives a message from a ghost; helps a village girl outwit—and out-dance—the Faerie Queen; travels beyond the grave to battle a dastardly undead Highwayman; and meets a hound so loyal he fights a wolf to the death to protect the baby prince left in his charge. All fine material for six tales, but it is the seventh tale, in which Trinket learns her father’s true fate, that changes her life forever.

 

Sounds better than it was. It was cute and all, but not great. I don't think I could get over the fact that she was only 11. It she would have been older it would have made more sense.  I loved Thomas the Pig Boy though.

 

7)

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) by Stephenie Meyer / YA / ****

I know... I know.

But despite some of it's cringe-inducing lines, I still love Edward. 

 

8)

Pretties (The Uglies) by Scott Westerfeld / YA / *** 1/2

 

and

 

9) Specials (The Uglies) by Scott Westerfeld / YA / *** 1/2

 

These two books continue the story of Tally Youngblood from the book "Uglies".  She has had her surgery.  She is perfect. She is popular.  She is having fun living a hedonistic life style of parties and pleasure that can only be described as "bubbly-making".  But then she receives a message from her past that reminds her that her perfect life is not exactly perfect.    She must fight through the induced fuzziness to fight conformity and escape from those that would keep her controlled.  The authorities use her against her will but she fights to keep that inner spark that desires free agency.

A great series.  As I said, the first book is the best but the whole story arc is worth experiencing.

I also read the next book that is related to the trilogy:

10)

Extras (The Uglies) by Scott Westerfeld / YA / ***

This book has a few of the same characters but starts a new story line. The fascinating part of this story is that in the new world that has resulted from Tally's rebellion, popularity is determined by the number of "hits" on the person's name on the internet-like "City link". This book was written about the same time Facebook was launched and years before the "like" button was added. Sounds like the author had some pre-cognition to todays world.

 

11)

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty / A / **

This book is the fictionalized history of the silent film star Louise Brooks. The majority of the book takes place when Louise is 15 and is given the opportunity to leave her small town mid-western life to receive dance training in New York. It also tells the story of her chaperone, who is using the trip to find the mother who abandoned her as a child.  The story movies along through the summer for about three fourths of the book and then drags on for another 150 pages that cover the next 40 years.

 

12)

The Memory Palace: A Memoir by Mira Bartók / A / **

From Amazon reviews:

The authors mother has schizophrenia that full ydeveloped in her twenties after she'd married and had two young daughers.  Her life and the lives of her two young daughters became a downward spiral of hospitalizations and medications and homelessness.

Bartok begins the story at the end, when Bartok reconnects with her mother in her mother's last days. In the process, Bartok discovers that her mother has kept a storage room for all these years, a room filled with the miscellany of their lives. It is by sifting through items from the storage room, her "memory palace", that Bartok tells the story of her mother's life and her own life. 

I though this book was reminiscent of Jeannette Walls, "The Glass Castle" but was not as heart wrenching, captivating, or intriguing.  I would recommend "The Glass Castle" instead.

 

13)

When the Killing's Done: A Novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle / A / ***1/2

Fascinating book written from two points of view.  It tells the story of a biologist working on the Channel Islands off of the California coast who is working to restore the islands habitat to their original condition.  This involves the killing of invasive species such as hogs, rats, and snakes.  A group of radical environmentalists are fighting the inhumane killing of the animals by the government.  Each chapter is from a different point of view and advances the story line while persuading the reader to the "rightness" of their viewpoint.  It was fascinating.  This book is being reviewed as part of the Richfied City adult reading program taking place this spring.

 

14)

The Litigators: A Novel by John Grisham / A / ****

I love John Grisham and have read all of his books and own most of them.  I love his wit, his way of bringing characters to life, and his irreverent view of lawyers.  While his most recent books lack the heart pounding suspense of his earlier works, they are still each satisfying in their own way. This book also does not disappoint and I would say is a lot better than some of the others released in recent years.  One of my all time favorite books EVER by any author is Grisham's "The Runaway Jury".

 

15)

 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer / A / ****

From Amazon:

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey

I devoured this book in one sitting and thought it was amazing and puzzling all at the same time. I loved the main character, Oskar. He obviously is not a normal nine year old.... he was brilliant beyond his years that made you forget he was inside just a little boy that was grieving his father.  I loved the story line as he searched for the lock the key would fit.  If the book would have just beein about him, I would have liked it much more.  I did not enjoy the added story of his paternal grandparents.  I suppose it had deep hidden meaning into Oskar's story as they too survived a tragedy but instead I found it distracting and a little strange. I need to watch the movie for this one now.

16)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky / YA / *

Hated it.  Crude and shallow.  A true disappointment.

17)

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green / YA / ****

One of the best books I've read this year. Really enjoyed this one.

It tells the story of two teen cancer survivors which is a reason to avoid the book all together. But the story is believable, raw, and a little irreverent while still reminding us to live every day.   A great book.

 

For a list of all my 2012 books, click on the link below

http://bookwormfamily.blogspot.com/2012/01/sonja-2012.html

 

 

 

Book bag

It is September 9th.  How did that happen?

It's like I was sucked into this blackhole of craziness and the universe decided to spit me out on the other side about six weeks later.

The first two weeks of August I did not read ANYTHING.

NOTHING.

NADA.

I know you are saying SERIOUSLY?   and I'm saying I KNOW, RIGHT??

I will tell you why.

It's called THE OLYMPICS.

Laundry didn't get done. Dinners didn't get fixed.  The house didn't get cleaned. It was like I hadn't had chocolate for two years and then someone locked me inside Godiva's factory.  Except obviously I HAVE had chocolate (and a lot of it) recently so that isn't a good analogy.  But you get the idea.

So here it is a month later and if you think I wasn't reading the whole time post-Olympics then you need to read my blog more cuz you obviously don't know me well AT ALL.

The problem is that now I can't really remember all I read. But here are some of the titles I do remember:

1)

The Demon King (A Seven Realms Novel) by Cinda Williams Chima / YA / **** 

and

2)

Exiled Queen, The (A Seven Realms Novel) by Cinda Williams Chima / YA / ****

and

3)

 The Gray Wolf Throne (A Seven Realms Novel) by Cinda Williams Chima / YA / **** 1/2

I first read "The Demon King" and the rest of the accompanying fantasy series last September for book group. I really enjoyed it and was excited to learn of a fourth book coming out in the fall.  My wonderful sister gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday and I purchased the series for myself with it (thanks, sister).  

It is a tale of several young people from different walks of life who are trying to make the right choices for themselves and those around them. They each have their own sets of challenges.  The characters are imperfect and likeable.  There is a lot of adventure, a touch of romance, and several individual plot-lines that all wrap into one overarching story. The series does a great job "world-building" without overburdening the story. I highly recommend it.

4)

Shiver (Wolves of Mercy Falls) by Maggie Stiefvater / YA / ***1/2

and

5)

Linger (Wolves of Mercy Falls, Book 2) by Maggie Stiefvater / YA / **1/2

I had first read Shiver last year and did not give it a very good ranking as if just felt too teen angsty. I decided to give it another try as I had really enjoyed a new book by this author, called "THE SCORPIO RACES".  I was glad I read this book again. I enjoyed it much more the second time.  I do however wish she had ended with "Shiver".  The book "Linger" definetely feels like a book wherein the author had a story in mind, wrote the story, had success from said story, so decided to make a sequel.  The story line drags and stumbles and takes away from the magic of the first book.

6)

Trail of the Spellmans: Document #5 by Lisa Lutz / A / ****

This author totally CRACKS ME UP. She continues the narrative of Isabel Spellman, part of a family of Private Investigators. Life in the family business is never dull.  Not only are they spying on people for pay, but spying on each other in a constant  game of family dysfunction.  This author is laugh out loud funny and has a clever wit.

7)

Uglies (The Uglies) by Scott Westerfeld / YA / ****

This is a great dystopian story of a society that eliminates all jealousy, racism, and covetnous by surgerically altering all members of their society at age 16 to make them "pretty".  Tally Youngblood can't wait to leave the boring life of the "Uglies" for the non-stop fun and partying life of the "Pretties".  Unfortunately she makes friends with a group intent on defying the government and staying the way they are. This group has realized that the surgery to make you pretty also makes you mindless and compliant.  Before she knows it, she must betray her subversive friends in order to earn her altering surgery.  But as she works to find a way to break faith with her new found friends, she is won over to their cause.

This book is the start of a series and unfortunately is the best of the books.

8)

The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks / YA /***

From Goodreads: "Think vampires are romantic, sexy, and powerful? Think again. Vampires are dead. And unless they want to end up staked, they have to give up fanging people, admit their addiction, join a support group, and reform themselves."

This book opens with the Reformed Vampire Support group finding one of their members staked and consequently turned into ashes.  This odd-ball group of characters work together to solve the mystery.  They don't plan to take revenge on the killer... but instead plan to try to "reform" him and show him that they are just "people" too. It was quirky, sometimes humorous and had the potential to be quite witty.

9)

The Song of Achilles: A Novel by Madeline Miller / A / ***

Achilles was gay.  Who knew????

10)

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag: A Flavia de Luce Novel (Flavia de Luce Mysteries) by Alan Bradley / YA / *** 1/2
Great quotes:
“You are unreliable, Flavia,' Father said. 'Utterly unreliable.'
Of course I was! It was one of the things I loved most about myself.” 
and
“I remembered that Beethoven's symphonies had sometimes been given names... they should have called the Fifth the Vampire, because it simply refused to lie down and die.” 
and
“I have to admit, though, that Cynthia was a great organizer, but then, so were the men with whips who got the pyramids built.” 

This is my second "Flavia de Luce Novel". The true delight of these novels is the 11 year old heroine, Flavia.  Her delighfult cheekiness and insatiable curiousity gets her into all kinds of scrapes and more than makes up for a mystery that was ho-hum. Thank you Ashlee for introducing us to these books.

What team should I follow?

I love football! I have been thinking a lot about following an NFL team, but am unsure of what team to pick. I like the idea of being a loyal follower over the years and seeing a program go through the inevitable cycles of success and failure. I have watched a few teams here and there, but usually because they had a former BYU player I liked. The problem with picking a team because you like the players is that the players then get traded to other teams and then you are stuck with the decision of switching loyalty to the new team. I should pick someone like the Broncos or the Arizona Cardinals due to proximity, but I'm not really into either team. I admit it will be a purely emotional choice, not one based on a win/loss record. One of the things I love about sports are the stories. It is why I love the Olympics. You root for a player or an athlete or a team when you emotionally connect with them due to having been given a glimpse of where they've been and what they have endured to get where they are. I know a lot of it is media spin, but to me it is like reading a fiction book. You know it isn't completely true but can emotionally connect with the story in some way and find your own truths. While I don't know what team TO pick, there are a few I know I won't pick. Again, these are totally knee-jerk responses based on odd biases and experiences. For example, I can't pick the Cowboys as I have too many memories from my early 80's childhood when the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were at the height of their glory. For some reason they really freaked me out. Don't ask me why. I couldn't tell you. I know I can't pick the Raiders as they seem like a bunch of thugs. Don't ask me where I got this opinion. Something to do with the gang hoopla of the 90's. I can't go with Green Bay cuz I am not into Brett Favre and he basically WAS the face of the Packers. I am currently leaning towards the Washington Redskins or the Indianapolis Colts. Or going a completely opposite direction and following soccer :) What do YOU think?