2016- A Year in (Book) Review

Throughout the past few years, I've liked to attempt to recap the highs and lows of each month in the previous year. Since most of 2016 was a blur, I decided that I would look at my https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/11081438?shelf=read list and review some of the books that I read each month instead. I was pretty proud of myself because I read 34 books this year, which were mostly a variety of memoirs, mysteries, and mindless novels that were meant to be turned into Hallmark movies. To the list!

January:

The Life We Bury, by Allen Eskens: This one was about a college student who has to interview a person and write a paper about them. He ends up going to a retirement home and interviewing Carl, a man who was let out of prison after 30 years for murdering someone. As he gets to know Carl and hears about his entire life, he starts to realize that he was probably wrongfully convicted. Joe and his neighbor, Lila, start to investigate the story further and are able to find out what really happened. I could not put this one down!

For the Love, by Jen Hatmaker:  Jenny sent this one to me for Christmas last year and I ate it up! Jen Hatmaker is hilarious and I'm assuming that she writes the way that she talks. Some highlights from the book were her thoughts on current fashions, how she keeps her marriage thriving, and anecdotes from her early years as a mom. Since I follow her on facebook, I'm having difficulty remembering everything she wrote about, but I'll tell you that her thoughts on This is Us, Gilmore Girls, and parenting are the things that she's had me laughing about recently.

Hush Little Baby, by Suzanne Redfearn:  This one was suspenseful from beginning to end.  The main character, Jillian, runs away with her two kids from her abusive, police officer husband.  He's a prominent and powerful figure in their community, so no one really believes that he's abusing her.  He has a lot of connections who are able to track her down when she runs away from him and there was always a feeling that he was going to find her, even when he wasn't near her.  

February:

Bossypants, by Tina Fey:  Tina Fey is so funny and she also writes the way that she talks.  I was thoroughly entertained throughout the whole book.  Here's one of my favorite Tina Fey clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVh7KJW0cFU

Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot: The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad, by Mike Greenberg: Andrew has watched Mike & Mike on ESPN pretty much every morning since we've gotten married, so I've also learned to love those two.  Side note: from the time Elisha was about 1.5 years old, he has said, "Mike and Mike!" whenever he has seen the ESPN logo.  Anyway, Greeny always makes me laugh with his self-deprecating humor, so I was happy to find out that our library carried this book.  I loved his anecdotes about his family and sportscasting, but there were also times when I got irritated because he has lived a privileged life and has seemed unaware of it.  The example that stuck out the most was when he talked about one of his kids being sick and throwing up all day, then going out to dinner with his wife and their friends later that night while the nanny took care of the baby.  

March:

I started Me and Emma, but it was only meh.

April:

The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion:  This one was recommended to me by Jess and since she was reading it soon after giving birth to Emmie, I knew that it had to be a good one... I say this because I only played Candy Crush in the months after having Elisha and had no desire to pick up a book.  I LOVED this one so much and it's probably my #1 recommendation for the year.  Don is an attractive and socially awkward genetics professor who decides to put together "The Wife Project" in order to find a wife who is the perfect match for him.  His questionnaire is very specific and shallow, which results in most women being offended by him and uninterested in him.  He ends up spending time with Rosie, who is the complete opposite of everything he's looking for, and there are all sorts of miscommunications between the two of them that result in laugh out loud moments.

May:

Bare Bones: I'm Not Lonely If You're Reading This Book, by Bobby Bones:  I've been listening to the Bobby Bones Show on the radio almost every morning for the past 2 years and I love the chemistry that they all have on the show.  This one is a memoir of Bobby Bones' life- from his childhood in a trailer park in Arkansas to college to the present day.  It's basically a rags-to-riches story, which is always fascinating to me, and he talks about all of the hard work that he did in order to become the country's #1 country radio host.  He tells a ton of funny stories throughout this book and I could hear his voice as I was reading all of them.

A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy, by Sue Klebold: This one scared the &8!$ out of me.  Sue Klebold was the mother of Dylan, one of the killers in the Columbine massacre.  From the way she described everything, it sounded like there was no way for her to know that her son was capable of murdering so many students at his school.  He sounded like a regular kid who hung out with his friends after school and on weekends, he went to prom with one of his female friends the weekend before the shooting, and he had a good relationship with his parents.  Since Columbine was the first school shooting to make national headlines, there was also no way that his parents could have known to look for signs that he was capable of doing something so horrendous.  It was heartbreaking to read about everything that their family went through in the aftermath of Columbine, but I think it will be a very helpful resource for school counselors and parents of teenagers.  I also appreciated the fact that all of the proceeds from her book are going to mental health agencies.

June and July:

The Walk Series- books 1-5, by Richard Paul Evans:  These books were about Alan, a successful advertising executive whose wife passes away after she is in a horseback riding accident.  She was his childhood sweetheart and the love of his life, so he's absolutely devastated when he loses her.  He decides to walk from his home in Washington to the Florida Keys and each book talks about the people and places he encounters along the way.  I loved these books because they were sweet and easy to read, but also because I've had a lifelong dream of taking a road trip and interviewing random strangers along the way to find out about their lives.  Even though this was fiction, it gave me a sense of what could happen if I were to ever take that road trip.

August:

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living, by Shauna Niequist:  This one was the biggest disappointment for me this year.  I love love love the way that Shauna Niequist writes, but I was pretty bored during this one.  Most of the book was about what she did to slow down her very busy life and about how she had become so anxious because of doing too much.  I felt like I was reading her journal at certain points, which did not make for interesting reading.

September:

The Sunflower, by Richard Paul Evans:  Everything from this book is what I hoped would happen to me on missions trips as a single girl. :)  Christine gets dumped by her fiance and goes with a volunteer group to Peru.  While she's there, she meets Paul, a doctor with a heart of gold who has dedicated his life to helping others in Peru.  Basically, they fall in love and care for some orphans together and live happily ever after.

October:

The Mistletoe Promise, by Richard Paul Evans:  I checked this one out of the library specifically because it was going to be a Hallmark movie (reason #152 that I'm an old woman).  Elise was a lonely woman who had been dumped by her husband for another woman.  Nick works as a lawyer in the same building as Elise and comes up to her in the food court one day to ask her to act as his girlfriend during the holidays.  She agrees to this and as they get to know each other while pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend, they fall in love (duh).

November:

Let me just take a moment to talk about this http://jennamissboyd.blogspot.com/search?q=donald+trunk and mention the fact that Elisha correctly predicted who the next president would be when there were approximately 10 people in the running. I'll tell him to predict someone better during the next election.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson: Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who has helped overturn the wrongful convictions of many people on death row throughout the past 30 or so years. I wasn't a huge fan of the format of this book because every other chapter was about Walter McMillian, who was on death row for a murder that he didn't commit and every other chapter was about the various reasons for people being in prison. Toward the end of the book, I ended up skipping the chapters that weren't about Walter because I was completely invested in his story and wanted to find out what happened to him. It was a VERY eye-opening book because it helped me understand the amount of power that there is in the criminal justice system and how hard it is to get justice if the people in power are unwilling to listen or are (even more scary) covering things up.

Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe, by Max Lucado: Emmy sent this one to me for my birthday and it was the perfect amount of mindless for me! It was another Hallmark movie on paper with Chelsea, a mom who was separated from her NFL football playing husband, and her two kids running a coffee shop. It turns out that the wi-fi at the coffee shop allows people to ask God one question, so people start coming in droves in order to do so. This opens their family up to encounters with all sorts of people and it was fun to see how everything tied together. There's also a clumsy cashier named Manny, who adds a little bit of comedy to this sweetly cheesy book.

December:

Love Warrior, by Glennon Doyle Melton: This was a memoir about Glennon's past and about what she did to save her marriage. I got super-judgy throughout it because it seemed like a lot of the difficulties that she had in her marriage were due to some poor decisions she made during her high school and college years. She slept with her high school boyfriend before she was ready and it sounds like she's spent the rest of her life being detached when it comes to sex. She talks about sleeping with Craig, her future husband and father of her children, on the first date. She says that the two of them have difficulty connecting because he only seems to care about sex and she wants to have intimate conversations. They go to counseling and figure out the other one's wants and needs and they renew their vows. After the book was released, they announced they were separating and a couple of months after that, she announced that she was in a relationship with Abby Wombach. This book made me want to find every rebellious teenage girl and make them read it, then explain how actions can have consequences throughout the rest of someone's life. I would also tell them about God's grace and how you can be forgiven for those actions, but there needs to be some acknowledgement of how you got there and what you're going to do to improve things.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, by J.D. Vance: J.D. Vance grew up in Middletown, OH and his ancestors grew up in Jackson, KY. Since I lived in Kentucky for a year, I was dying to read this one and get some insight into the culture and traditions of the people who lived there. He was loved and cared for by his grandparents, even though he spent the majority of his life living with his mom and older sister. His mom had multiple husbands and live-in boyfriends throughout his childhood and abused prescription drugs during that time. His grandfather was an alcoholic while his mom was growing up, which may have added to the choices that she made in her life. J.D. spends a lot of this book talking about the working class in Appalachia and witnessing the cycle of poverty firsthand. He joins the military after graduating from high school, attends Ohio State University after he has served in the military, and then goes to Yale Law School. He meets his wife in law school and discusses what he did in order to develop a healthy relationship with her since he didn't have a good model of one during his childhood. This one was very inspiring and another eye-opening one.

Bridge to Haven, by Francine Rivers: Emmy gave me this one for Christmas and I couldn't put it down after about 100 pages (it was about 450 pages long, so it seemed like a daunting task at first). Abra was abandoned by her mother under a bridge in Haven when she was first born and Pastor Zeke found her. She's adopted by Pastor Zeke and Marianne, but Marianne passes away when Abra is 5 years old and Pastor Zeke decides that she would be better off being adopted by the Matthews family. Once he gives her to them, she feels that she's worthless to everyone and runs off with a boy when she's 15 years old. The boy is a terrible excuse for a human being who has connections in Hollywood, so he connects her to Frederick who turns her into a movie star. She makes every bad decision possible while she's in Hollywood and thinks that she can't return home to Haven. It gets super-depressing for awhile there and then it finally becomes a story of redemption.


In conclusion, those were the books that I enjoyed or had opinions on this year!

Donald Trunk

A couple of weeks ago, we had the morning news on and they showed a picture of Donald Trump. Elisha looked at the screen and said, "Donald Trunk!... He's my favorite." I think it's a sad commentary about how much media coverage there has been of Donald Trump since my almost 3 year old knows who he is. I'd also like to say that Elisha's political views do not reflect those of either of his parents. Anyway, since Andrew and I were so shocked to find out that he knows who Trump is, I think Elisha's been talking about him just to get a reaction out of us.

Some examples:
1) We were in the checkout line at Walmart today and there was a picture of Trump on a magazine. Elisha began stating excitedly, "Donald Trunk! Look! It's Donald Trunk!" (I think that may have been just as embarrassing as a temper tantrum).
2) This evening, I let him use my phone to watch a Mickey video on youtube and he ended up seeing the Fox News logo in the recently visited section of Safari. As he's clicking on the logo, he tells me, "I want to see Donald Trunk."
3) He was in a bad mood when he woke up one morning, then perked up as soon as he saw Trump on the screen.

In conclusion, I don't know where we went wrong in raising this child. Also, I hope he doesn't have some sort of sixth sense about who our next president will be.

Summertime Happiness

I was thinking this morning about the fact that I've had a great summer, which made me want to list all of the reasons that it's been so fun. Plus, Elisha's been saying and doing a lot of cute things, so I wanted to write about those, too. Here we go!

1) Spending time with my side of the family in California. We went to Disneyland to celebrate Grandma's 80th birthday with all of my dad's side of the family and had so much fun together! I also realized that it was the first time in my life that I had a date at Disneyland. And not even just one date. I had two of them! I loved being able to introduce Andrew and Elisha to everything in the park. We were able to see Mickey right away when we got into California Adventure and Elisha spent the majority of the photo opportunity pounding Mickey's fist and blowing it up. The best part was that Mickey didn't even seem to be aware that was happening. He just put his arms around Eiley and Elisha while looking at the camera.

2) Going to Atlanta to spend time with the Fortune family. We had Supper Club approximately once per month when they lived in Virginia, so we continued that tradition while we were visiting. We also discovered that their 3 year old daughter, Mary Carol, has quite the crush on... Andrew? Mary Carol and Elisha have been betrothed since we found out we were having a boy, but it was, "Andrew, will you read to me? Andrew, will you play tea party with me? Andrew, will you sit next to me?" I thought it was hilarious and Andrew, of course, wasn't going to say no to any of her requests, but he was still a little awkward about it.

3) Andrew said that they were watching TV one day and Elisha told him, "I'm pooping!... It hurts!... Kiss it." Elisha's become a big fan of having his injuries kissed and made all better, but he was on his own for that one. I've also gotten quite a few mosquito bites this summer and he'll randomly go to kiss my leg, then tell me, "All better." It's so sweet, yet kind of gross.
4) Speaking of kissing, Elisha has also started standing behind Andrew and me with one arm around each of our shoulders, then he'll push our faces together to make us kiss. It's very adorable and I'll remind him of that when he's grossed out by us expressing any type of affection toward each other when he's older.
5) Elisha and I got to visit Miss Kim in Washington D.C. because she was there for a work trip. We got to catch up on life and stop by the White House to look at the outside of it. Elisha ended up falling asleep in his stroller while we were in front of the White House, so I guess he wasn't that impressed.
6) Andrew and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary while we were in California by going to the food trucks. Nothing says romance like eating dinner in a parking lot. But seriously, it was delicious and I think it will end up being one of our more memorable dates because it was kind of random. We also celebrated our anniversary in Virginia 3 weeks later by going to dinner at Dudley's (where we ate on our accidental honeymoon in Williamsburg) and going to Busch Gardens, which was the least crowded I had seen it in years.
7) We also got to see a taping of "The Soup" while we were in California. I've watched it almost every week since it started in 2004 and it was so cool to be in the audience. Everyone in the audience also got to take pictures with Joel McHale after the taping, which was incredibly kind of him, because he said that he was going to be leaving on a plane for Seattle about 90 minutes after the show ended that night.
8) Hanging out with Emmy, Grandma, Eiley, Margot, and Elisha one Saturday night while we were out there. Grandma ordered takeout for all of us from Stonefire Grill (Tri-tip! Caesar Salad!Breadsticks!) and then we mocked "Christian Mingle" after putting the kids to bed. Actually, Emmy and I mocked "Christian Mingle" and Grandma fell asleep after about 20 minutes. :)
9) We got involved with a Connect Group at our church this summer and I'm really enjoying the people in our group. We haven't been able to do a ton with them because we were out of town so much, but I'm excited to get to know everyone better.
10) I got a text from Andrew when I was at work soon after our trip. He said that Elisha had been pushing a suitcase around the house while singing the ABC's and wearing his hat and shoes. That pretty much sums up life with a 2 year old.

11) EILEY LET ME DO HER HAIR!

The Garbage Truck- Part 2

A few years back, when I was living in Kentucky and working at the preschool, I wrote a blog post about how much those preschoolers loved to see the garbage man. http://jennamissboyd.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

Then, this sweet video showed up in my Facebook news feed a few times last week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZcyXkp9Qsw

After working at the preschool, there was a part of me that hoped that my future child would get excited about seeing the garbage man. So, a few weeks ago, Elisha and I were in the backyard on a Tuesday afternoon and I heard the garbage truck in our neighborhood. I took him to sit on the front porch steps and we waited to see the truck. Once he was to our trash can, he used the arm to lift it into the truck and a light bulb came out, shattering on the street in front of our driveway. He felt the need to explain that this happens sometimes and told me someone from the city would come to clean it up. Then, he lifted the trash can again and one of the wheels fell off the side of it. He gave me a number that I could call for someone to fix that, too. In conclusion, it ended up being a slightly awkward encounter with the garbage man and Elisha seemed pretty indifferent about seeing the truck anyway. There goes my dream of Elisha becoming BFFs with the garbage man.

Bernice (and one of many reasons that Andrew Garrett is the greatest).

My computer battery died a few weeks ago, so we bought another battery off of Amazon and the computer continued to work for about 5 minutes at a time. When that happened, I realized it had to do with the computer itself and we were going to have to break down and buy a new one. Since I had a boatload of paperwork to do and zero working computers, Andrew researched some on Amazon and found one that could be shipped to us the next day. He decided that the smart thing would be having it shipped to his school. We wouldn't be getting home until around 9pm the next night (Wednesday) and it would have been terrible if someone had stolen that particular box off of our porch (for the record, no one has ever stolen anything off of our front porch, but we weren't going to risk it with a $300 laptop). Well, as we discussed this, it started snowing a little outside. Neither of us thought anything of the snow and I went on my way to work feeling relieved that I would have a computer the next day. I got to my first kid's house and it continued to snow and snow. I ended up going home at 4pm, instead of at 5:30pm because my second session was canceled due to the snow. I thought, "This is great! I'll be home at 4:30 and have the house to myself for a couple of hours while Andrew and Elisha are at the gym." Wrong! It took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to drive home because the traffic was so bad.

Well, you can probably figure out where this is going... school ended up getting canceled the next day because the snow was way worse than anyone had anticipated. Andrew called Amazon to see if they could have the laptop delivered to our house, but it was too late. They said that we could call once we received the delivery confirmation, but there wasn't anything they could do in the meantime. Andrew saw the delivery confirmation at 7am the next morning and called immediately to see if they could deliver it to a UPS store. He also called one of his friends who works for UPS to see if he had any suggestions on how to track it down. He was finally able to get in touch with someone and they said that he could pick it up from the warehouse in Virginia Beach. He went to the warehouse and they told him that they didn't know where it was, so he would have to wait until they delivered it to the school.

We had another big snowstorm that was coming in that night, which meant that it probably wouldn't be delivered until Monday (5 days later). I had a lot of things that were due the next week, so I tried not to have a nervous breakdown about having to do a ton of paperwork in the span of 2 days. A few hours later, Andrew's friend from UPS called and said that he had been able to track down the computer! They met up and Andrew was able to bring her home to me that night.

I named her Bernice because every great laptop needs an old lady name. I also just looked up the meaning of Bernice and it's, "she who brings victory." I feel like that's appropriate after everything we had to do to get her home.

Cute Elisha Story

Since Elisha is talking more now, he's also surprising us with some of the things that he knows. When I put him to sleep at night, I pray for him first. Then I say, "I love you," and give him a hug and a kiss. This was our conversation after I put him in his crib last week:

Elisha: I keeess you.
Me: You want to kiss me?
Elisha: Yea.

Then he walked over to where I was standing next to his crib and planted an open-mouthed kiss on my cheek.

I think I'll keep him. :)

2014

It's time for another reflection on the previous year. I'm kind of proud of myself because I just looked at the years that I've written these for and I've only missed 2012 since 2008. There are probably ones from earlier years on myspace, too, but I haven't looked there in forever. Onward to the list!

January: We went out to dinner with friends on New Year's Eve, then came home to watch a HIMYM marathon before midnight. When we got home, I couldn't find my purse in Andrew's car. I had left it under a coat in his car while we were out because he had everything that we needed. We soon realized that it was nowhere to be found and that someone had stolen it, which meant canceling checks and credit cards. Plus, we were completely paranoid that night because someone had the keys to our house and my car. We were able to replace most of the stuff in it, but it was a huge hassle. Elisha took his first steps on his 9 monthiversary on January 26th. I continued going to physical therapy because my back wasn't completely better after having herniated discs that were pinching the nerve. We also had a lot of snow and ice!

February: We continued with the snow and ice. Andrew, Elisha, and I got sick with the stomach flu during the same week, so that was gross. Tom, Andrew's dad, had a stroke at the beginning of the month and ended up in the hospital. We were able to say goodbye to him on February 17th and tell him that we loved him. It was incredibly difficult to get out the words, knowing that this was going to be the last time I saw him on this earth. He passed away on Tuesday, February 18th, and a Celebration Service was held that Saturday. It truly was a celebration of his life with people telling stories about the funny things that he did and family members (Andrew included) singing songs that he had requested for the service.

March: I was discharged from physical therapy because my back was finally all better. I also went back to the gym and started some interval workouts on the treadmill. We finally had some sunshine again, so Elisha and I spent some time outside and I enjoyed the fact that I wasn't in pain anymore.

April: I don't really know what happened in April, so I'm guessing that it was more working and spending time outside.

May: I studied not hard enough and took the BCaBA at the end of the month.

June: Andrew went to John Brown University in Arkansas for a training for his school. He's technically a college professor now because some of his students are taking history for college credit through that school. Elisha and I met him in California because we were going to visit my family and meet Margot. My main goal for that trip was to snuggle a ton with Margot, so I think that goal was accomplished.

July: We went to visit our friends Bess, Russell, and their daughter/our future daughter-in-law, Mary Carol, in Atlanta. We were having "Supper Club" with them when they lived in Virginia and we would basically do a potluck at their house once per month. We ate, played games, and ate some more while we were visiting them.

August: I spent a lot of time studying for the BCBA exam and I worked. That was pretty much the gist of August.

September: Elisha and I took a road trip to Bemus Point, NY, for Paul and Jordan's wedding. We shared a hotel room with Kim and Jenny, so it was fun to have a slumber party with that crew and catch up on life. Elisha contributed the words, "Oh, I seeee," "key," and "hi" to our conversations many, many, many times. It was also FREAKIN' COLD in upstate New York, which weather.com had lied about, so I bought a sweater dress and leggings from the local consignment shop. I found out at the end of the month that I had failed the BCBA exam. :(

October: We went to Jessie Overton's wedding and Andrew sang for it. I made a Halloween costume for Elisha (this was the first and probably only time that will happen). I dressed our E.G.G. up as an egg for "Trunk or Treat" at my mother-in-law's church, then we went to dinner at the Broken Egg. He crashed on the way home from dinner, so I took advantage of the opportunity to snuggle with him when we got home. I also ate most of his Halloween candy while he was asleep on me.

November: I turned *gasp* 35. I studied (A LOT) for the BCBA exam and took it on 11/25. We were going to stay home on Thanksgiving because I was recovering from all of that studying, but ended up going to the Overton's house (a family from Andrew's school) for dinner and the Wall's house (Andrew's best friend's) for pie.

December: We all got sick at various times during the beginning of the month. On one of those days, I ended up with the stomach flu and puked 9 times in 8 hours. I don't think I've ever been that sick in my life. The day after that, when I was able to move around a tiny bit more, we went to a little Winter Wonderland in Downtown Portsmouth called Coleman's Nursery. Elisha was fine with sitting on Santa's lap and basically just wanted to pull on his beard. He also liked watching the trains and the toys in the Christmas exhibits. While we were there, they told us that there was chocolate dipping in the gift shop, so we went downstairs and got to make chocolate things for free! THEN, they told us that there was a place with pretend snow at the end of the street and that it was going to be starting in a few minutes. We went down there and Elisha did some dancing as the fake snow came down. My point is- we ended up having this magical winter night on accident.

We also went to California for Christmas and had a blast hanging out with my family. And the best Christmas present of all was finding out on Christmas night that I PASSED THE BCBA EXAM!!! I don't think I've ever been more relieved about something in my life. About 15 minutes after finding out I passed, there were Christmas carolers at my parents' door. I don't know why they were there at 9:30pm, but they added to the magic of finally being done with that test for good.

That's all for 2014. It started out pretty bad and ended up fantastic. I'm looking forward to what the New Year will bring!