Currently

Reading: a silly novel by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg called The Heist. I like Janet Evanovich; her books are lighthearted and easy to read. They don't take life too seriously and sometimes I need that in a book... I take life very seriously and I read a lot of books about the atrocities that humans enact upon each other, so sometimes a lighthearted, ridiculous book is just what my mind needs to be soothed. The Heist, though... I don't even know what to say about this. It's fun but so very silly. There's a certain quality to it that I can't really wrap my mind around. As much as I read, I don't review a lot of books so I don't have much experience picking apart writing. I can tell you how I feel about it, whether or not I liked it, and what kinds of thoughts it evoked in me, but dissecting the merits of the writing is sort of strange for me. I've always fancied myself a writer and the notion of criticising someone who has actually been commercially published- well, I guess I don't feel worthy of that. I also read a lot of reviews written by other readers and some of them are very clever with their words. I sort of feel like a bumbling idiot compared to them.

I'm also reading Black Dove, White Raven. This one is by an author that I absolutely love, Elizabeth Wein. She wrote Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire, two WWII novels that tear my soul open to read. Her writing is superb and heart-wrenching. It also leaves me feeling like I need to read silly novels to scrub away the horror. I'm not too far into this one, and I've had a bit of a hard time getting into the story. The library desperately wants it back, so I might have to put this one aside until I can get my hands on it again.

Listening to:The sounds of my fish tank. I'm working in the kitchen this morning, on account of how I woke up earlier than my husband and didn't think he would appreciate me working in our home office (which is currently about 5 feet from our bed). I've got this fish tank in the living room and thanks to modern day home construction I've got an "open concept" floorplan; this essentially means there is no division whatsoever between the kitchen and the living room so I've one giant room for everything (can you tell how much I dislike this?).

On my blog: I've blown the proverbial dust off my blog and I've been reading through old content. My cousin's death has brought up old family posts, written a few years ago. Re-reading some of those old posts has pointed out to me that I've haven't been very kind to some other family members. At the time, I didn't share my blog with my family and certainly not with anyone who knew them or me personally. It was public, of course, but there was no intersection between my private life and my public blog and I wrote rather bluntly (or rudely, depending on how you're featured) about some family members. I wasn't in touch with them and I let some of my baser feelings show.

Things are different in my family now; we're a bit closer than we used to be, and I've been working to put some of those feelings aside. Reading my old words here has me feeling a bit of shame at my attitude. I don't know if any of my family have seen those unkind things, but if they have - I apologise. Sometimes I'm a jerk, and I'm trying to change that. I welcome any phone calls if you want to call me a jerk with your voice, and I'll make amends as I can.