Books and Movies, 2012

pantheon
Books:

  1. The Full Cupboard of Life, Alexander McCall Smith
  2. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling
  3. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
  4. REAMDE, Neal Stephenson
  5. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson
  6. Blue Shoes and Happiness, Alexander McCall Smith
  7. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot


Abandoned books:

  1. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, Robert K. Massie
  2. The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, James Gleick


Movies:

  1. Moneyball

Delightful news

pantheon
Things here are going well!
  1. As many of you have heard on other social media platforms, I'm pregnant! 12 weeks along (due in early November). The queasiness has been manageable (hooray for ginger ale and crackers); the fatigue has not.
  2. Three of my cousins are pregnant right now, too, with due dates in June, August, and September. The family reunion in 2013 is going to be so much fun.
  3. We are going to find out the sex, if only to make it easier to explain to S. But neither E nor I has a preference, and I was kind of delighted that E said it was "trivial". The values we want to instill in our kids are independent of gender. (Also, we are both of the opinion that birth order factors into personality more than gender does.)
  4. I started reading the Norse mythology in Bulfinch's, as preparation for our trip to Norway. My brother had warned me that it was depressing. I'm not sure I'd call it depressing, just . . . does Thor do anything other than go around and bash giants on the head with his hammer? Eh, I'll read some more on the next rainy night.
  5. On a political note, I am delighted that a ballot initiative to overturn the death penalty in California has made it onto the November 2012 ballot. (As California enacted the death penalty by ballot initiative, it can only be overturned by ballot initiative.) But I don't want to get my hopes up and be disappointed if it fails. Sigh.
  6. And back on a happier note, S remains hilarious and delightful. His current obsession is "yardwork", which he defines as hitting plants with a stick. And when he pretends that we're all in a car, he insists that we all put our seatbelts on. Aw!


Hope you're all having a great week!

Books and Movies, 2011

pantheon
Books:

  1. The Golden Gate, Vikram Seth
  2. The White Queen, Philippa Gregory
  3. Half a Crown, Jo Walton
  4. The Red Queen, Philippa Gregory
  5. The Last of the Tribe: the Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon, Monte Reel
  6. Bossypants, Tina Fey
  7. At Home, Bill Bryson
  8. The Secret Lives of Dresses, Erin McKean
  9. Packing for Mars, Mary Roach
  10. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
  11. Spoiled, Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan


Re-reads:

  1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling


Abandoned Books:

  1. Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, Daniel Radosh


Movies:

  1. Inception
  2. Richard III
  3. Toy Story 3
  4. Amadeus
  5. The Adjustment Bureau
  6. The Other Boleyn Girl
  7. Hot Tub Time Machine
  8. The Right Stuff
  9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
  10. Exit Through the Gift Shop
  11. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  12. Bridesmaids
  13. Helvetica
  14. The Muppets
  15. Bill Cunningham New York
  16. Midnight in Paris

Be careful what you wish for . . .

pantheon
Well before I had kids, I used to joke that I'd want to take maternity leave when the kids were, say 6-12 months old, or 12-18 months old. They're just much more fun at that age!

I finally got a job, after a long time looking, applying and interviewing for a range of positions. I start on April 11. Sam will be 18 months old on April 16.

(All I'm saying about it publicly is that it's not an academic position.)

Tags:

2010 in Review

pantheon
2010 had a lot of ups and downs, but it was good. Here's the usual end-of-the-year meme.

2010 )

(Previous years: 2006, 2008, and 2009.)

Books and Movies, 2010

pantheon
Yes, there are some!

Books )

Movies )

All Clear, by Connie Willis

pantheon
And now it's time to talk about All Clear! It's been all I could think about over the weekend, and I finished it this afternoon. My thoughts on it behind the cut, while it's still fresh in my mind.

Spoilers for All Clear )

I know several of you have read it -- what did you think?

Blackout! Who wants to talk about Blackout?

pantheon
I just finished Blackout, by Connie Willis, with perfect timing -- All Clear comes out on Tuesday. (If that's not a reason to finally get a library card here, I don't know what is.) And oh boy, I need to talk about Blackout. Surely some of you have read it?

Major Blackout spoilers here! )

I'm sure that, like, half of my questions are answered in the first half of the book. Still, have any of you read it? What do you think?

Grind, grind, grind

pantheon

Any advice for getting a ten-month-old to stop grinding his teeth (8 total)? Or should I just start saving up for the inevitable TMJ treatment?

Tags:

Non-verbal communication!

pantheon
Sam is nine months old (as of yesterday!), and the past month and a half have been a blast. Sometime in there he's shifted from interacting with us to communicating with us. We have exchanges of blowing raspberries at each other. He'll shake his head back and forth, and get very excited if we do that back at him. He's started high-fiving and waving (next up: the terrorist fist jab), and is starting to understand when to wave. All these exchanges make him very happy.

It's all very cool, because he's not talking, but it seems like these are all ways of us telling each other, "Hello! I am here! You are here! I love you!"

Also, he is properly crawling, although he's still faster at the inchworm method.

He is also still crazy kicking all the time. Here's the most recent video of him kicking, behind the cut:
kicky Sam! )

Seriously, he is crazy active, as can be seen in all these videos. I guess it's no surprise, as he was always a very wriggly fetus. Maybe, uh, I should cut back on the caffeine?

Right! Life is good! I know I keep saying this, but 9 months is a very fun age.

Latest Month

April 2012
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Syndicate

RSS Atom
Powered by LiveJournal.com
Designed by Tiffany Chow