In your upcoming playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts, if you could, please make the game a complete blow out. My heart cannot take these close play off games, especially tonights win against the San Diego Chargers on a last minute miss of a field goal on their part. I have scared the cats. My son had his aunt on speed dial in case I had a heart attack and my Bible study lesson had to be postphoned until tomorrow for lack of concentration.

If it must be close, I will survive, as long at the Pats come out on top. A feat that shouldn’t be too difficult against the King of Playoff Chokes, Peyton Manning.

Your dearest fan,
Eliza Jane

P.S. Give Samuel, Caldwell and especially Gaffney a big bonus, will ya?

I’ll admit off the top, I’m character-driven when it comes to books and movies. The plot need not be that remarkable, as a matter of fact, sometimes simplicity is the key, but the characters themselves are what I’m most interested in, and how they react to the conflict that occurs.

We Are The Mulvaneys is the first book I’ve read by Joyce Carol Oates and more than likely will not be the last. The book is about a family, a happy, healthy, prosperous family living on a farm in upstate New York. More than that, it’s about one incident, one day in their life, one moment that happened personally to one and communally to the whole family and how it changed them forever. It’s the story of the struggles from within a family to detach and reattach. To deal and to deal with those who don’t deal. It’s a story about people. People dealing with life. People dealing with each other. People dealing with themselves.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I loved the depth Oates went to to allow the reader to really become attached to each member of the Mulvaney family. I felt each struggle, felt each personal battle. I related to each child and each parent.

But it felt to me long-winded at times. Details of tangental pieces that I could not find myself interested in, because I was already so full of the details of the family. There were times when I found myself skimming, wondering why she included so many paragraphs to things that did not educate me further on any character, their motives, or their emotions. Descriptions that went beyond just giving me background or setting. It was a long book, arduous at times to read through, and yet even now, I am thinking about the Mulvaneys, thinking about my own family, thinking about how families deal with crisis, personally and as a unit.

I recommend the book. I’ll pick up another of hers here before long and see if perhaps it captivates me as much or if I get lost in too much detail.

From my daily jog through other blogs, I have come to realize it’s National Delurking Week, which means those of you who stop by blogs but don’t comment are supposed to feel so guilty about it this week that you’ll actually comment. Nah, makes no difference to me. Comment if you feel like it, don’t if you don’t. I’m gonna write regardless if anyone actually reads it. Cause that’s just how I roll.

Peace.

I finished my first book of 2007 yesterday, “The Mending String” by Cliff Coon. I thought this year it might mean more if I wrote a short little review of the books that I’ve read, so here goes my very rough first try: (I haven’t done this since grade school, so work with me here)

The Mending String was an uncomplicated story of a man and his daughter. Despite Coon’s attempts at making the relationship seem strained and difficult, the characters and their relation to each other seemed typical and commonplace to me. The youngest daugher, living alone with her Pastor father after her mom dies, stubborn as the day is long and a father, leading a church in his old-fashioned ways, has a hidden past secret that is not nearly as tantalizing as the author wanted you to originally believe. Through a series of misadventures and bad choices (placed to provide the assumed Christian reader with a life lesson, I suppose)the daughter and father are forced to address their strained relationship and to share their hidden secrets.

The book was a quick, easy read. It was everything you expect and nothing you wouldn’t. There were no hidden surprises or twists of plot that kept you guessing, just an easy flowing storyline that wrapped itself up neatly at the end.

The Mending String epitomizes what I don’t like about many Christian authors and that is the assumption of innocence and morality of the readers mirrored in the characters. Of course we know what the right thing is, and of course we SHOULD be doing that, but we don’t always, as humans we make bad choices sometimes very bad choices, and yet we are forgiven for those and we learn from them before moving on. To tell a good Christian story, it seems to me, an author need not depart from the complexities that face us in real life, the struggles we go through just as non-Christians. The difference is in how we respond to those choices, and how God responds to us. Things don’t always wrap themselves up neatly. Happy endings aren’t the normal, and good moral behavior isn’t always rewarded.

This book didn’t captivate me and perhaps won’t stick with me past next week. I didn’t walk away learning anything or feeling as though I related well to the characters and came out somehow changed (for the better) at the end. It’s a nice read. I’d recommend it only if you pick it up cheap at a used book sale.

As our guest pastor warmed up the congregation this morning with what he considers to be witty remarks, as the congregation chuckled and quietly applauded his antics, LM, in a voice heard above all else, said to me, “Mom? Why again don’t you like this guy?”

It’s hard to melt yourself into a wooden pew.

Which one of these things doesn’t belong?

1. I went for a walk this morning in a t-shirt and yoga pants.
2. All the windows in the house are open.
3. I have plants out on the deck.
4. LM is out riding his bike in shorts.
5. It is January 6, 2007.
6. I live in SE Pennsylvania.

This is crazy weather. It feels like a day in May, not a day in January. I feel as though I should be planting flower boxes on the deck or something instead of watching my neighbor take down their Christmas tree.

But I won’t complain. In my book, this is way better than snow. LM would vehemently disagree to that, but he’s put it past him enough to be outside on his bike playing with friends. He’s good like that. :o)

I’m going to go enjoy my day. I hope wherever you are, there’s sun in your heart and a spring in your step!

Happy January 6th, everyone!

Thirteen Moons – Frazier
Lucia, Lucia – Trigiani
All Over But the Shoutin’ – Bragg
Dear John – Sparks
For One More Day – Albom
Broken For You – Kallos
The Abortionist’s Daughter – Hyde
Maggie – Martin
The Dead Don’t Dance – Martin
A Good Year – Mayle
Mere Christianity – Lewis
Moo – Smiley
When Crickets Cry – Martin
Mercy – Picoult
Eventide – Haruf
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Capote
The Pillars of the Earth – Follett
The Good Mother – Miller
A Wedding in December – Shreve
The Pilot’s Wife – Shreve
River Rising – Dickson
Get a Life – Gordimer
Wrapped in Rain – Martin
Crossing to Safety – Stegner
A Lesson Before Dying – Gaines
Bad Twin – Troup
The Stolen Child – Donohue
Some Wildflower in My Heart – Turner
Plainsong – Haruf
In Cold Blood – Capote
The Wonder Spot – Bank
Milk Glass Moon – Trigiani
Big Cherry Holler – Trigiani
Big Stone Gap – Trigiani
Fools Crow – Welch
Where Rivers Change Direction – Spragg
The Power of the Dog – Savage
The Stones of Summer – Mossman
Sleep Toward Heaven – Ward
Was it Beautiful – McGhee
Until I Find You – Irving
Time Traveler’s Wife – Niffenegger
Vanishing Acts – Picoult
Crime and Punishment – Dostoyevsky
Anna Karenina – Tolstoy
Disgrace – Coetzee
Kite Runner – Hosseini
To the Lighthouse – Woolf