Book Review: Divergent Series

I just finished reading the Divergent series. This was the second time I read the first book, Divergent, and the first time reading books 2 and 3, Insurgent and Allegiant.

And I should add that you shouldn't read this post if you do not want to know what happens in the end. I mean, this is not a super detailed review, but just an FYI...

Basically, they are your typical young adult series books. You know what I'm talking about: people dying, buildings exploding, a government to over throw, just your run of the mill teenage drama.

If you remember that it is written for young adults, you will not necessarily hate this series. You might hate it for other reasons though. Generally, I enjoyed reading it. All three books are very different, and just when you get used to what's going on, BAM! Something big happens, so don't get comfortable.

All I really want to say about these books is short and simple. The first book in the series was interesting because we got to know the main character and how things worked in her world. It was pretty violent in the end, and everything that we had read about in the hundreds of pages preceding it was completely blown away in a matter of the last few chapters. Man, THAT was annoying.

In the second book, we got to see how she and her family and friends were rebuilding their lives and getting revenge on the people who tried to destroy everything. That was pretty interesting. 

And finally, we get to the last book: Allegiant. Dear readers FINALLY start to learn about the history behind their little world, and the main chracter's history specifically. And thank you Roth for actually ending this book the way that it should have ended. It was tough to read :( but definitely worth it. 

Basically, this series can be summed up thusly: A violent version of The Truman Show in the name of science through experiments with human nature. 

THERE. 

Merry Christmas Eve 2013!

What a nice night. Tommy and I lounged around all day, did some chores, wrapped some gifts, had a nice home made dinner and dessert, watched Pacific Rim and then the ending of Its A Wonderful Life (gets me every time!)

Now we are laying in bed watching Family Guy and snuggling with KittyPants at the foot of the bed.

Just waiting for Santa!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Also, we don't have a real tree this year. And by real, I mean we have a mini tree that is fake. It is not even a life size tree, but we have been busy ok? 

Here it is with some of our favorite ornaments, tree skirt, angel, and our ready-to-go gifts for tomorrow!

And there's KittyPants. She's got her head tucked into herself because she hates the early episodes of Family Guy. Me too Kitty. Me too. 

Ordinary moments

Dear friends,

Today I...

• Slept in

• Read some of my current book

• Laid on the couch and watched NCIS, four episodes of My Cat From Hell, and Jeopardy with my husband

• Finished my Christmas shopping (bad idea..too many people out...ugh)

• Made Subway for dinner

• Watered all the plants in my house

• Wrapped said Christmas presents and set up a mini tree on my side table in the family room

• Played rummy with my husband on our couch with a fire going in the fireplace, football on mute, and the Christmas Pandora station playing on my phone. I won, and Tommy had to follow through on our bet. Which was to unload the dishwasher by HIMSELF (which we all know that makes the task waaaay less fun) BWAHAHA. 

So, to sum it all up for you, today was a wonderfully ordinary day. I am of the opinion that life is made up and defined by these ordinary days. I am so glad that I get to spend them the way I do with the person I do. He is the best and knows exactly how to make the ordinary days count. And lets be honest, the combination of the ordinary days are the best days of our lives. 

Here's to an ordinary life! 

Love, 

Me

My running goal for the year

Though its not New Years yet, I have already started a goal that will take me a year to accomplish. I have wanted to complete this goal for a long time, and it is just a step in the journey that I want to accomplish with my love-hate relationship of running :) 

In November, I set a goal for myself that I would run one race a month for a year. I started with the Hot Chocolate 5k in Chicago because I have run that race for the past four years in a row. It is my favorite one. The weather is crisp and cold, but not too cold, the goody bag is sa-weet, and it's a 5k so it's not too terrible to run ;) I wanted to start and end this year long goal with a race that I really like. So it thats why I started it in November 2013, instead of January 2014. 

So far, I have done a November race, and a December race. 

The December race was hella-cold. It was 13 degrees out and NOT sunny of course. My sister Chris drove me to the race site (thanks Chrissy! Love you!) and I got there 45 min early. Note to future cold weather running self: don't get there early. 

So I picked up my race packet, put on the hat and antlers I was given in my goody bag, and started walking and hopping around because I thought I literally was going to freeze to death. 

I'm not proud of what I did next. Let me just preface what I am about to say with that statement. I was SO COLD and my quads were beginning to feel numb, which at the time made me think, "hey, this isn't so bad! My legs aren't that cold!" which I knew was prob a bad sign. So I slowly ran down the sidewalk to try and warm up. 

That's when I saw them: the port-a-potties. There was no line, and I was THAT cold. So I got in one and locked the door. I stood there for about 25 ish minutes Facebooking (yes, that's a verb), texting, and checking Snapchat. Just doin my usual Millennial activities, except inside of a Port-a-Potty. I'm a little ashamed. But it was so cold, and I was working on completing my goal so 

don't judge. 

The only reason I got out to brave the cold again was because I heard someone say, "is this really the line for the bathroom?" The dialogue in my head went something like this:

- I should get out so people can actually use the bathroom for its intended purpose. 

- no way! It's cold and you will have to stand outside for 20 more minutes! Stay inside!

- but people have to use the bathroom and its rude to just hang out in here. 

- you dont owe these people anything. For all you know they just want to do what you are doing. No one in their right mind would go to the bathroom when it is this cold out. They are bluffing. Sorry I'm not sorry they didn't think of this idea first! Suckers!

- don't be a bitch. You're leaving now. 

- wait! No! Ah it's cold! F*ck why am I doing this?

~~~•Side note•~~~

Am I ever going to do things that I want to do because I just want to? That comment "you don't owe these people anything" made me realize that I do. I constantly feel like I owe everyone else everything. Mostly because my happiness is not a right, but a blessing and I feel like I should always be sharing that blessing with everyone when ever I am able (I.e.- all the time weather I feel like it or not). 

That's why I got out of the port-a-potty.

~~~•End side note•~~~

And then I jogged to the start line with the song, "I'm so cold, I'm so cold, I'm so cold, I'm so cold. I got an ice box where my heart use to be" in my head. 

Luckily, I found a guy sipping coffee and asked where he got it. He showed me the way to a truck that was giving out coffee for FREE and I got a cup. I sipped it next to the truck and made some running friends who thought my idea to block myself from the wind with the truck was genius. We complained about the cold, jumped up and down, and cursed ourselves for paying money to wake up early on a Sunday to run. 

I mean, seriously. 

Then I ran with frozen toes, called Chris to pick me up, and went to a family brunch.

January's race will be here before I know it. And I'm semi stoked about it despite the cold!

#20- Be smarter about my food purchases

This is #20 of my 25 Before 25....turned 25 things I want to do whenever I want to do them ;)

Becoming smarter about my food purchases, among other things, has taken me a looooooong time to do. It's a slow process for me, which is mostly because I'm impatient and disorganized.

It means more to me than just choosing the right foods and farms that my foods come from. For me, it also meant planning my meals and lunches ahead of time so that I can spend less time wandering around various grocery stores (and I seriously do mean wandering...) and more time doing things I actually like to do.

I started out pretty good at planning dinners and making lists for grocery shopping. And then I would forget the list at home, try to remember what I need while going up and down every aisle putting random things in my cart, and/or calling Tommy every two seconds to ask him if things were on the list or if we had xy&z in the pantry. I have wasted so much of my short life in grocery stores. uhhh.

So then I started making the list on my iPhone because I take that everywhere with me! But I broke that "habit" real quick and started wandering again. I'm not a list person when it comes to grocery shopping. That's not my life regardless of how hard I try.

After many months of trying and failing at #20, I have finally started to figure out what this means to me exactly.

Here's what I have been able to figure out:

1. Meat Purchases. I actually do care about these. Am I 100% perfect about making sure the meat I buy is organic, hormone free, vegetarian fed, and free range? No. I still purchase products that have chicken or beef in them that is not all of the above, mainly because I do not know, nor do I have the time to figure out, how to make these products myself from scratch with meat that does meet my requirements (see what I did there? eh?) One day....maybe. If I am buying chicken or beef that is packaged, I do choose products that are labeled organic, hormone free, vegetarian fed, and free range. It seems weird, but free range is very important to me. Most people say, "Why? That's so hypocritical to want your food to be free range before you KILL it and EAT it"but that's the way I want the animals I consume to be treated, and this is my blog so deal with it!

2. Egg Purchases. You can also get eggs from farms with chickens that are vegetarian fed and free range. Makes me feel a bit better about eating their unborn babies. (Was that gross? I deleted and rewrote that sentence twice before I decided to leave it...) I especially like this carton I found at Jewel.
"Letting chickens be chickens"



3. Meal Planning.  Basically, I am not the best at this. I might never be the best at this, but I am trying my best! I like to shop on Sundays, and typically try to think ahead in the week on what I want to make for dinner. I try to cook at least three nights a week, and have been trying to also incorporate my crockpot into that once in a blue moon. After I think ahead of what I might want to make for dinner, I go and buy that stuff on Sunday for the week. I will also pick up some stuff that I might need for lunch packing. Then, when I get home, I organize the dinner stuff in the fridge so I remember what goes together. I also pack my lunches for the week and group those together by day so they are easy to put in my lunchbox the next day! This is something that has taken me a long time to figure out, and is definitely not second nature for me. You might think I'm silly because it's not a hard concept, but we all have our crosses to bear in life or whatever, right? Luckily mine seems to be meal planning.


So there you go. In 800 words or less: Being smarter about my food purchases. I still have a lot to learn....so if you have any advice, please share! I think my next step miiiiiight to make one of these for myself:

{Lovely}

Book Review: Mocking Jay

Ohh Mocking Jay.

I read this book two days ago and I'm torn. First of all, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire were both great novels. They were both well written, and really kept me guessing as I read them.
I thought Mocking Jay continued on this track, as I continued to be surprised by the plot.

That being said, this was definitely not the mind blowingly super awesome ending to the series that I expected.

********SPOILERS AHEAD! So don't continue reading if you don't want to know what happens!!*******









Basically, here are some problems I had with the third book in the trilogy:

1. The love story. Now I have been on team Peeta since the first book. And then definitely after seeing the movie. Not only is he cute and a good person, but he's a total romantic and is so sweet to Katniss. I was seriously rooting for them both so I was stoked to find out that at the end they are together! I even loved the epilogue that gave us a happy glimpse into their future together, however brief. I was a little confused at how this all played out though. At one point in the book, when the crew is on a fake secret mission to kill Snow and are hiding in the cellar of the fur undie shop (yes, I know exactly what I just said there. It's a little weird), Katniss hears Gale tell Peeta, "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without." So basically I was waiting from that point on for Katniss to have some sort of epiphany about this silly love triangle, but she didn't until, like, the last 200 words, which is not what I expected. Also, it seems that it wasn't even her choice! All of a sudden, she is home in District 12's Victor Village, with Peeta planting Primrose bushes in her yard and Gale is in another district with some special important job so.... decision made? So anticlimactic.

2. Character death and destruction. By this I do not mean that important characters died. I mean, sometimes that has to happen, but it was the way it was done. I felt more sorrow after Finnick died form being torn apart by scary lizard-human mutants in the sewers than when Prim died in the explosion. Prim's death just happened. Shocking? Yes. Sad? Not as much as I thought it would be. I knew Prim was going to die before I started reading the book because a friend accidentally spilled the beans (my fault really, for not finishing the last book in due time...) so maybe I just built it up in my head too much? That whole chase scene in the sewers was pretty good, and the characters that we were learning more about as the scene continued were killed off in some interesting ways. With every one of those deaths I was thinking, "Oh no! Shoot." because I was getting to know those characters. I think Prim coming out of no where, and then just dying so abruptly didn't have the same effect.

3. Viewpoint. Part of what makes the book interesting is the fact that it's written in first person, so you learn things as the main character learns them. I can appreciate that, but I just wish the main character in Mocking Jay wasn't drugged up in the hospital or knocked out half the time! There were multiple times when Katniss was waking up, safely back in her hospital bed (or whatvever), and had to learn what happened from other people. It was annoying. Katniss should have been more present in the book, so that we could also be more present in the book.

4. Katniss. Yes, I think that Katniss' character in this book was part of the problem. Maybe I'm just used to main characters kicking ass and taking names, but she was so weak in this book. Were there a few times that she stepped up to the plate? Yes, and I loved it. But overall I felt that she was even more whiney in this book than she was in the last. I especially hated the frequency with which she hid in the closet. Don't get me wrong, shit happened to her that there is no going back from and she definitely deserved a few of those pity parties she threw herself, but not THAT many.
Gale and her are in a fight? Closet.  Haymitch calls her out on her silly love triangle? Closet. I mean....where was that strong, independent, clever, and sharp girl from District 12 we met in the first book? You know, the one who volunteered to DIE to save her sister? Where was that same girl that fuels the fire with her disobedience from the second book? It just felt like she tuckered out in the end.

5. The realism. One thing about this book that I had a love/hate relationship with was the realism that Collins gave is in this book. In my opinion, Katniss acted as a girl of her age would most likely act in the face of so many devastating events to happen in a relatively short period of time. There were times that I appreciated that, and times that I was annoyed by it, like how often she hid in a closet, for example. I could appreciate the fact that both many people, both essential to the plot and not, died in this book because that's war. I could appreciate the fact that Katniss got injured and had a few meltdowns, because that's life.  could even appreciate the fact that she didn't end up all rainbows and butterflies with the perfect life in the epilogue because who would be after what she went through. But I think the collective realistic portrayals in this book made for a very anticlimactic ending, which I am torn on weather that was a good or a bad thing for me.

Overall, I liked Mocking Jay, despite my five areas of displeasure. I think that perhaps Katniss and Peeta should have some how met at the hanging tree at the end, but mostly because that would have felt like the right thing, not because it would have made the story better....

Definitely not the best book in the series, but worth a read to find out firsthand what happens with the characters. The movie will be interesting I think. For now, here's an article I found that will just have to hold us over until it comes out!

Opinions?

Googling

Did you know you can learn all about your Google searching activities? You can see your searching activity by hour and day.

Here is my week summed up:

1. Black Friday deals
2. Catching Fire- image search. Lost a good 45 minutes to that. yep.
3. Thanksgiving video for Kindergarten
4. Pete the cat video for Kindergarten
(Um, I teach Kindergarten....and sometimes it consumes my life)
5. What does the fox say?
6. Miley Cyrus SNL
7. When does Downton Abbey season 4 start up?
8. When does Girls season 3 start?
9. When does Game of Thrones season start?
10. When does True Blood start?
(Then I got smart...)
11. HBO shows schedule online

So basically, I teach Kindergarten and I watch a lot of TV...namely, HBO shows.

My life.