Category Archives: Thoughts

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Book Excerpts: Barefoot Season by Susan Mallery

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Barefoot Season by Susan Mallery

” . . . Once in the truck, she glanced at the house.  From the outside, it wasn’t much.  But to her it was everything she needed.  A place to retreat and lick her wounds.  Somewhere she didn’t have to pretend.  Sanctuary. . . .”

Thankfully, I have somewhere like that – my bed at home.  I’ve been spending a lot of time in it the last six months or so.  It’s a place I can go and shut the world out.  I’ve needed to do that for physical and emotional healing while I deal with the cancer and its effects on my body and mind – my life.  I’m glad it’s here for me, as I expect to need it off and on for quite a while yet.

” . . . “I’m sure her time in the army has changed her.”
Carly rinsed out the dishcloth and hung it over the sink.  “How do you know that?  You barely knew her before.”
“How could war not change someone?”

Right, so the current language is that a cancer patient “fights” the cancer.  ‘Nuff said.  Or if you don’t get what I’m saying from that, please see “Awakening.”

“She had to admit, looking better made her feel a little better.  More here rather than in some kind of emotional limbo.”

Emotional limbo – been there, know that place.  It’s not Always a bad place to be.  Sometimes it’s a way station for where one needs to go while necessary subsurface processing happens.

“. . .” You’re not stupid and you’re not alone.  We all do things that don’t make sense to other people.”

I’m sensing a theme here.  I like it.  I resemble that remark.

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.

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Interesting What People Do and Don’t Notice

Contact lens

Contact lens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve worked at my current employer for a year and eight months.

In that time, not once have I worn my glasses.

Today I’m wearing them because one of my eyes is bothering me enough that I don’t want to put a contact lens in it . . .

. . . and not one person has noticed.

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.

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Right, so I’ve seen these Two Moms in the Raw bars at Starbucks and passed them over more than once (the amount of sugar is too high for me in comparison to the protein/fiber content even if they are organic and everything “free”), BUT I am in Love with Siggi’s yogurt! Please see: “A Word A Week Photo Challenge – Round.”

And the Orange Ginger flavor is pretty delicious, with some fresh clementine/mandarin oranges cut up on top & sprinkled with some clean granola.  Mmm…breffast!

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Book Review: Winter Sparrow by Estevan Vega

Winter Sparrow

From Goodreads.com:

“I’ll grow wings all by myself.”

Mary is a young artist about to enter a new chapter in her life. After years of waiting and searching, she has finally found true love. She’s also just discovered that her fiancé Joshua has inherited his father’s rundown countryside mansion. To add to the rising pressure, her wedding day is so close she can practically hear the music. All she has to do is accept what the future holds. Accept…and be happy.

But something’s missing.

As the seasons change, her doubts turn to fears, and her fears become reality. Through struggle and loss, the love she once possessed for Joshua transforms into contempt. When Mary is confronted with a magical escape, the life she has and the life she dreams of will collide, awakening a mysterious change within. But no choice comes without cost, and each one will draw her closer to the truth.

At times both beautiful and haunting, Winter Sparrow dares you to step into a world where eternity is a moment and every breath is a second chance. The fantasy begins….

My Thoughts on the Matter:

What strikes me right away, within the first couple of pages, in fact, is the elegance of the writing, how each sentence is packed with substantial information, drawing me in even before I really know what the book is about, and yet sending my mind spinning, trying to anticipate what’s coming next and excited to keep reading to see if I’m right or if I’ll be surprised.

And unfortunately, right after I jotted this down, things went south for me with this book.  I did finish it but I didn’t like it.

First, I found Mary to be a touch too neurotic, which made me think she and Joshua would not have gotten together in the first place.  Then I found Joshua a little manipulative and controlling.

I did like the middle a bit, where there seemed to be some magic at play.

And then it ended, abruptly, nastily and disjointedly.

I just can’t recommend this one, at all.

This book has been reviewed for the following Reading Challenges (and added to their respective pages).  It is owned by me, was acquired from Amazon.com (Kindle edition), and cost $0.00:

– Monthly Key Word Challenge 2013
– 2013 Why Buy the Cow Reading Challenge
– 2013 Paranormal Reading Challenge  (Ghosts)
– 2013 Eclectic Reader Challenge (Romantic Suspense)

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.

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Because This Blog is My Soapbox and for No Other Reason Than I Can

Cadeusus

Abortion is a medical procedure by Lizz Winstead on Huffingtonpost.com.

Related Media:

Oh, and I still miss you, Grandma!

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Longer Days

General Gratitude:

The sky is no longer pitch black when I leave work at 5:30pm.

The days are getting longer.

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.

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Awakening

I think cancer is causing this awakening for me…

awakening

There comes a time in your life when you finally get it … When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out “ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying or struggling t…o hold on.” And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world from a new perspective………..This is your awakening.

You realize that it is time to stop hoping and waiting for something or someone to change, or for happiness safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that there aren’t always fairytale endings (or beginnings for that matter) and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you. Then a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

So you begin making your way through the “reality of today” rather than holding out for the “promise of tomorrow.” You realize that much of who you are and the way you navigate through life is, in great part, a result of all the social conditioning you’ve received over the course of a lifetime. And you begin to sift through all the nonsense you were taught about :

– how you should look and how much you should weigh,
– what you should wear and where you should shop,
– where you should live or what type of car you should drive,
– who you should sleep with and how you should behave,
– who you should marry and why you should stay,
– the importance of bearing children or what you owe your family,

Slowly you begin to open up to new worlds and different points of view. And you begin re-assessing and re-defining who you are and what you really believe in. And you begin to discard the doctrines you have outgrown, or should never have practiced to begin with.

-Sonny Carroll (Awakening)

~via Soulfire Sacred Bodywork~

This is beautiful, and I think true for me, thanks to my breast cancer, and is put in a very positive light.

I don’t think it necessarily feels so positive to some other people in my life.

As I go through this transformation:

– I may be less likely to have conversations they want to have because I Don’t want to have it.
– I may be less likely to respond in conversation the way they expect me to.
– I may be less likely to respond to them in other ways they way they expect me to.
– I may not give them the time and/or attention they want or expect.

I think you probably see where I’m going here.  I’m simply no longer the person they think I am or who I actually used to be.  From my perspective it is all personal and positive – I Literally do not have time and/or energy to devote to things I no longer care about – and I do not do this out of Any malice whatsoever.  Still, I realize it can be disconcerting and confusing.  But that’s for them to work out, not me.

I’m definitely still in transition, a limbo I am accepting and quietly ‘being’ with until it shifts in its own time.  I don’t know who I’ll be when I come out the other end or what my (personal) life will look like or who will and won’t be in it.  (The basics of my life – Hubby, home, work are not likely to change – but even they, I suppose, could – NOT that I’m looking for them to.)

I’ll keep you posted.

Personal reflections – Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.

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Book Excerpts: The Queen Gene by Jennifer Coburn

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The Queen Gene

” . . . “I need some time to digest everything you’ve said.”  I learned that dismissal years ago when a client said it to me.  At the time, I thought it was a polite way of letting me know that my complex concept needed time to be broken down and properly appreciated.  Now I know it’s a nice way of saying, This conversation is over. . . .”

Who knew one could learn actual life skills from a light, fun read?  I’m Definitely remembering this one.  I learned from a very wise therapist once that just because someone else wants to have a certain conversation Does Not mean that I am required to have that conversation.  This is a polite way to say “I am not having this conversation with you.”  Nice.

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – January 14, 2013

It's Monday What Are You Reading

The It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? meme is hosted at Book Journey.

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Analog (dead tree version), at home:

Girl in the Glass

From Goodreads:

Since she was a child, Meg has dreamed of taking a promised trip to Florence, Italy, and being able to finally step into the place captured in a picture at her grandmother’s house. But after her grandmother passes away and it falls to her less-than-reliable father to take her instead, Meg’s long-anticipated travel plans seem permanently on hold.

When her dad finally tells Meg to book the trip, she prays that the experience will heal the fissures left on her life by her parents’ divorce. But when Meg arrives in Florence, her father is nowhere to be found, leaving aspiring memoir-writer Sophia Borelli to introduce Meg to the rich beauty of the ancient city. Sofia claims to be one of the last surviving members of the Medici family and that a long-ago Medici princess, Nora Orsini, communicates with her from within the great masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance.

When Sophia, Meg, and Nora’s stories intersect, their lives will be indelibly changed as they each answer the question: What if renaissance isn’t just a word? What if that’s what happens when you dare to believe that what is isn’t what has to be?

So I’m reading this at home, but it’s been sitting for a few days.  It may or may not make it.  We’ll see.

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Digital (on my Kindle), anywhere I want:

The Queen Gene

From Goodreads:

Lucy’s friends have always told her how lucky she is to have a mother like Anjoli. But as much as Lucy adores her theater-savvy, melodramatic mom…well, some relationships just work better at a distance, even if Anjoli still calls ten times a day to say, “Darling, I’m in crisis!” Lucy’s got crises enough of her own, including trying to keep her marriage hot with a two-year-old underfoot, babysitting the artists in residence at her Berkshires artists’ colony, resisting her attraction to a drop-dead-sexy man, and trying to rid her 100-year-old home of ghosts. Lucy’s about ready to start living her life on her own terms, and mother-daughter relations will never be the same again…

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Digital (Audiobook) through the iphone, in the car:

Long Gone

From Goodreads:

After a layoff and months of struggling, Alice Humphrey finally lands her dream job managing a new art gallery in Manhattan’s trendy Meatpacking District.

According to Drew Campbell, the well-suited corporate representative who hires her, the gallery is a passion project for its anonymous, wealthy, and eccentric owner. Drew assures Alice that the owner will be hands off, allowing her to run the gallery on her own. Her friends think it sounds too good to be true, but Alice sees a perfect opportunity to make a name for herself beyond the shadow of her famous father, an award-winning and controversial film maker.

Everything is perfect until the morning Alice arrives at work to find the gallery gone–the space stripped bare as if it had never existed–and Drew Campbell’s dead body on the floor. Overnight, Alice’s dream job has vanished, and she finds herself at the center of police attention with nothing to prove her innocence. The phone number Drew gave her links back to a disposable phone.

The artist whose work she displayed doesn’t seem to exist. And the dead man she claims is Drew has been identified as someone else.

When police discover ties between the gallery and a missing girl, Alice knows she’s been set up. Now she has to prove it–a dangerous search for answers that will entangle her in a dark, high-tech criminal conspiracy and force her to unearth long-hidden secrets involving her own family . . . secrets that could cost Alice her life.

Waiting in the wings (i.e., bought at Audible.com and living on my iPhone) is the rest of the Caster Chronicles series:

–  Beautiful Darkness
– Dream Dark
– Beautiful Chaos
– Beautiful Redemption

Ya, I was gonna go straight from #1 on down the series.  But I got into the car this morning and realized I hadn’t downloaded it anywhere – not to the Music App on the iPhone Nor into the Audible App, and without wi-fi that just takes too damn long and sometimes just won’t happen at all.  So, I’m listening to “Long Gone” instead, and will get back to the Caster Chronicles after that.

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved

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Book Excerpts: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

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The Marriage Plot

” . . . What made Madeleine sit up in bed was something closer to the reason she reads books in the first place and had always loved them.  Here is a sign that she wasn’t alone.  Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling.  In bed on a Friday night, wearing sweatpants, her hair tied back, her glasses smudged, and eating peanut butter from the jar, Madeleine was in a state of extreme solitude. . . .”

I like that idea – extreme solitude, and yet not alone.

” . . . ‘Of or related to Leonard Bankhead (American, born 1959), characterized by excessive introspection or worry.  Gloomy, depressive.  See basket case.‘ . . .
“Hannaesque,” Leonard said. “Stubborn.  Given to ironclad positions.”
“Hannarian,” Madeleine said.  “Dangerous.  Not to be messed with.”
“I stand warned.” . . .

” . . . Grief was physiological, a disturbance of the blood. . . .”

Yes.  I have no insightful commentary, just yes, so yes!

” . . . A bruised ego reflected its own image. . . .”

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.