Off the Blog

Well, I have more pictures of my family with the baby. Here is my nephew B with IL.

And my nephew J with IL.

A lot happened this week. First of all, IL was diagnosed as with hypothyroidism. We don’t know yet how bad the situation is, but we have to grind up some Thyroid Hormone replacement and put it in his formula. It has given him diarrhea and keeps him awake all night. 😦 However, we think the side effects are well worth saving him from the intellectual harm that could be caused by the hypothyroidism in the long run. Hopefully he’s catching up on sleep during the day (and we’re switching to giving the med during the day, so we can sleep at night). And hopefully the diarrhea is only a temporary problem. Here is a picture of Aaron and IL after a long night of staying awake.

On top of all that, my sister and nephew J “saved” a tame cat that had been out in the Minnesota cold on Christmas. Since they have two pitt bulls, I took the cat to my parent’s house, where they need a cat to scare off the mice. I put up a post in a few places, and found the owner, though, so my parents still don’t have a mouser. 🙂

Exercise and Weight Loss

This month I was told to take it easy with the exercise, so I have only been doing a little bit of mall walking with my mom. And a really small mall at that. I plan on doing a more rigorous exercise routine starting January. I am hoping to get down to 160 lbs before the end of this year, and down to 140 by the end of the following year. That may be asking too much, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Here’s a graph of my weight loss so far since the baby was born. The peak is, of course, my peak weight during the pregnancy:

Not too shabby, eh? Of course, most of that is the weight of the baby, plus some water, lol. I’ll keep you updated with a monthly graph of my progress – assuming there is progress!

Reading and Watching this Upcoming Week

Still working on The Vaccine Race, The Scarlet Letter, and moved on to Grave Peril – the third book in the Dresden Files (for my Dresden Files Group Read). In January for the 2019 Year of Shakespeare I’m going to read Twelfth Night. So I’ve decided to watch the movies available on Amazon. This is the first I started. 🙂

Completed This Week

Finished Fool Moon, the second book in the Dresden Files.

Acquired This Week

Here are my Christmas presents this year. I’m pretty excited about all of them.

Summary: When of Harry Dresden’s students asks him for help to build a magical circle to enclose a beast, he refuses because he is afraid she will hurt herself. However, he is soon entangled in a murder case involving his student and her circle. As he searches for the murderer, he discovers all sorts of Werewolves and he has to figure out which are good and which are bad.

My Thoughts: This book is just as good as the first Dresden book. Although I hear he becomes more kick-ass in each of the following books and he eventually gets so kick-ass that he has reached the peak of kick-assedness and can’t go any further. I’m looking forward to seeing how kick-ass he can get. In this book, he is certainly more kick-ass than the first book.

Because I feel silly reviewing every short book that I read, I’ve decided to begin a Thursday tradition of listing off the children’s books and graphic novels that I’ve read each week.

To IL, I’ve read:

A cute book about a little bunny that wants to run away from home, but is convinced by his mom that she’ll follow him anywhere.

A short but sweet night-night story for young children.

I had to suspend my disbelief for this book, but it was still pretty cute. 🙂 It was about a family of ducklings moving through Boston to get to a lovely new home.

Yet another classic. I loved this book as a child. Is it an allegory for voting? lol

Despite knowing who Thomas is and playing with his little toy friends, I had no idea Thomas was such a fussy little engine. It’s nice to see him develop in this set of stories.

Cute book about how much mommy loves her son.

Adorable book about a big hare and a little hare telling each other how much they love each other.

Also adorable. Story about snowmen partying at night.

I think everyone knows what this book is about. 🙂

 

Hello Everyone! I don’t think I’ve posted this picture my cats, Myra (left), Puck (top), and Hero (right) – and I needed a picture for this post.

I just wanted to drop a quick note and say that I’m going to try to make Wednesdays about discussion posts in the spirit of Feed Your Addiction and It Starts at Midnight’s Book Blog Discussion Challenge. I can’t promise to post every week (I just had a baby, after all), nor can I promise that all my discussions will be about books or book blogging (the world is a many-splendored thing, after all). I will try to stay away from politics, other than side issues like, perhaps fracking. (Good Frack! I just pulled fracking out of nowhere!)

I have heard that well-written discussion posts garner a heck of a lot more hits than book reviews. Personally, I’m a book review sort of person, but I also have a lot of thoughts running through my head. Maybe I should share them with you. So to all those book bloggers out there – Do you find discussion posts get more hits than reviews? What kinds of discussion posts would you like to see on my blog? How do you come up with ideas? 

Thanks for your thoughts!

Summary: The Montrose family has moved to a small mill town to get away from the scandals of the big city. Lydia, who considers herself the less attractive of the sisters, suffers from the rumors that her more beautiful sister Catherine has brought upon the family. She feels she will never find someone who will love her and take her despite the rumors. When she meets a handsome and mysterious man, she wants desperately for him to love her, but knows that it is hopeless. On top of those problems, Lydia is realizing that she may be more powerful than she believes – there have been witches in the family…

My Thoughts: I loved it. The romance was adorable, and on top of that, there was drama that added a lot to the plot. Highly suggested to anyone that likes non-smutty paranormal romances.

 

Yes, this is another first day photo, but it has the happy parents in it. 🙂 Looking at this picture, I realize how much IL has grown already. He was 6 lbs 8 oz, and is now 6 lbs 15 oz. That doesn’t sound like much, but he is noticeably bigger. He is eating quite a bit, and is otherwise healthy.

D & M are doing a great job of adjusting to their new life with a baby. D feeds him regularly, and M has agreed to feed him in the upcoming month to help earn his reverence badge in Cub Scouts.

D, sadly, had a stomach bug and missed school for a couple days. Probably being overprotective, I quarantined IL in his nursery until she was better. Which meant I finally got caught up on blog comments!

My mom, and neice L with IL.

And my dad feeding IL.

Reading in the upcoming week

I am listening to two audiobooks: Fool Moon, for my Dresden Files Group Read, and Vaccine Race. I know I’m being too careful, yet again, but I don’t want IL to hear Fool Moon because it’s scary. A nice nonfiction work is so much more educational. 😊

My Serial Read is Scarlet Letter, and my work of fiction is American Overdose.

Completed this week

This was also considered ok for baby ears, and I got plenty of quality time with IL while listening to it.

Acquired this week

Nothing

Summary: Harry Dresden is America’s only Wizard. In addition to doing small occult detective jobs on the side, he is a consultant for the special division of the Chicago Police. When someone is brutally murdered, he must find out who the culprit is – making some enemies in the process.

My Thoughts: This is my second time reading this book. I started the series over for my Dresden Files Group Read that I started hosting in November. (Anybody is welcome to hop in whenever they please, even if they have not joined us for the first few books in the series). I enjoyed this book as the pinnacle of Occult Detective series beginnings. Harry is likable, yet makes stupid mistakes all the time. The other characters are weak in comparison, but I know from experience that they will develop with time. The plot is solid, and mostly not predictable. It’s a fun book, suggested for anyone who likes urban fantasy.

Thanks for anyone who participated in the first month of the Dresden Files Group Read. I’m sorry I didn’t get this post up on time. I was busy preparing for the earlier-than-expected induction of IL.

QUESTIONS:

• What did you think of Storm Front overall?
• Is this your first time reading a Dresden book?
• How about your first occult detective novel? Have you read others in this subgenre?

I loved Storm Front, and gave it 4 stars, as can be seen in my review. As far as occult detective novels go, I think Dresden is the gold standard.

This is not the first time I’ve read this book – in fact I’ve read the first three. But I restarted reading them for the sake of others who wanted to join this project from the beginning.

I have partially read three other occult detective series, if the Nightside novels (Simon R Green) and the Iron Druid Chronicles (Kevin Hearne) count. The third is certainly in that subgenre: Rivers of London (Ben Aaronovich).