Randomness

Nothing big has happened lately. I have finished a book, but I don't feel like blogging about it. But I do feel like blogging, so I'm just going to document some random stuff we've been doing lately. These types of posts are always fun for me to look back on later.

1. We survived our first Florida hurricane. Actually...it was just basically a rainstorm. We got all hunkered down and filled up our gas tanks and our bathtub with water, just in case...and then it just rained a little bit. Kind of anticlimactic. Thanks, Hermine, for letting Greg work from home on Fridaythough. That was fun. Also, we got some lovely, crazy, Florida sky pictures.

2. We finally broke down and bought an actual bed frame. We're Hemnes people over here. It may not look like much, but it's pretty fun for us. After 6 years, we feel like a legit married couple. Not a great picture, but our room feels so put together and peaceful now. I'm like, Joanna Gaines ain't got nothin' on me. (just kidding, I really love her, and I don't really know what shiplap is or how it got on all the walls, but I love shiplap too) 

3. I always wanted a daughter with tawny curls. You guys, her hair is growing and I am getting my wish. 

The perfect baby curl. 

4. I've written my second primary program, and it's pretty stinkin' awesome, if I do say so myself. Probably going to go over time, though. Also, cub scouts is kicking my booty. Other than that, I can't even tell you how much I heart being in primary. 

5. That's kind of it. Brynn just woke up from her nap. Time to play. 

 

August Books

Time to do the obligatory monthly reading post. I feel like I might be missing something, but anyway here are the books I remember reading in the last few weeks. 

I've been wanting to read this book for awhile. Elder Richard G. Hinckley came to my church ward when I was a young teenager and he quoted from this book in his talk, and since then, I've known I needed to read it. Don't know why it didn't happen til now. 

I think this is an absolutely beautiful book. It shows how Africans lived around the onset of apartheid in South Africa. The story of Stephen Kumalo's trip to Johannesburg to find his sister and his son, both who have turned to crime to support themselves in the city, discusses the issues surrounding urbanization, poverty, crime, tribal culture and the end of tribal culture, race, family dynamics and the importance of healthy family structures in society...there's just so much in here. Even though the book was about a preacher and societal issues, it never got "preachy." It just told a story about one family's sorrow in a way that was somehow simple and bare but also poetic. 

Mostly, though Cry, the Beloved Country is a story about forgiveness and compassion, and that's why it was beautiful. I thought the compassion demonstrated by the characters was all the more poignant because each and every character was presented as flawed, even very flawed. And I'm not talking about Absalom Kumalo, who committed murder. I'm talking about the heroes of the book. This  is just one of those stories that leaves me both thinking but also in peace. Even flawed people can commit great acts of charity, and even extremely flawed cultures can produce people who are capable of incredible love. Regardless of your opinion of how societal problems should be addressed, this book is an eye-opener. 

Okay, I've written too much already, so I'll just say, here are the other books I read: 

Some light comedy and some light economics. My favorite anecdote from the books above was about the social structure and economics of drug dealers in Chicago. DON'T DO DRUGS, JUST SAY NO. 

Public libraries are really some of my favorite places, and I mean that wholly without sarcasm. I have 6 or 7 books on hold at the library right now. It's nice to know I have good taste I guess...or at least the same taste as everyone else in Jacksonville? 

Brynn is 1!

Brynn turned 1 on Sunday! We did her cake and presents on Monday because we had Greg's brother in town.

Brynn is fearless enough to climb all over everything and crawl straight toward the ocean, but she was pretty scared of this birthday hat.

She got happier when we gave her some cake! There was zero hesitation. She dove right in and did not let up. 

We sang to Greg too. He turns the big 28 tomorrow. 

Messier and messier...

Taking a little milk break. 

We finally got around to unwrapping some presents. 

As you can see...her plate is now empty. 

Happy birthday Brynn! 

I can't believe it's been a year. It makes me a little sad. Why does it go this fast? A year ago she was my tiny helpless baby, and now she's this beautiful toddler with 6 teeth and a whole lot of happy sass. Thank you, Brynn, for healing my heart and bringing me a world of happiness. You have changed everything for the better. I love you fiercely. 

Brynn's Year in Review

Brynn's birthday is coming up! I didn't do that cute thing where you take monthly pictures of your baby with circles on their chest saying how many months they are. Oh well. But in honor of the fact that Brynn is almost one, here are some "monthly" pictures of her anyway! 

T - 1 week. The last belly shot I ever took:  

 I finally did all her laundry...on the day I went into labor (which was NOT the day she was born. Don't worry, it only took 30 HOURS). Hey, at least it got done. 

1 week old. Our little trouble maker/tongue tied jaundice baby. 

3 weeks: 

5 weeks. No, we've never let her sleep in our bed, but she always gets pulled in there in the mornings. It's still one of my favorite times of day. 

2 months! 

3 months! 

Almost 4 months. Rolling right over. She started being able to roll from her back to stomach right after Christmastime. 

She was getting pretty good at propping herself up around Christmas, too. 

Christmas jammies! 

I might be slightly biased, but I think she's the most beautiful thing in the world. 

Almost five months! 

                                      

5 1/2 months: 

Almost 6 months. Fell asleep at Reading Terminal Market. 

6 1/2 months! 

Almost 7 months. She started scootching around. 

8 months: 

Pulling up on things! 

9 months! Right before we moved. 

Almost 10 months. Started doing some rad big girl hairdos. 

11 months. She climbed all up and down this bean bag to play with her friend. 

11 1/2 months. Helping out during Primary Presidency meetings! 

Her hair is starting to show some curl. 

She likes to climb up on her perch and read tear apart our books. 

Almost one year. Sniff! It's gone by so fast! 

Read This Book...

...I mean play.

So, I am the only one who didn't know that the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was going to be released in book form? I must have been living in a hole in the ground for the past few months, because honestly, I thought the play had already started in London a while ago.

So, I came into Cursed Child with very few expectations. I hadn't been thinking about it, so I didn't know what I thought it would be like. But I was excited to read it, if a little skeptical, which is why I spur-of-the-moment bought it on Amazon a few days after it came out.

I'll try not to give too many spoilers. But I'm feeling like I really need to vent/rant/purge myself of this here, so I make no promises.

I didn't like it. It's been a long time since I've read Harry Potter, and I don't think I'm enough of a super-fan that I was going to be automatically in love or automatically disappointed, if that makes sense. I've heard that the special effects for the play are amazing, and the actors are good, so I'm sure that adds a lot. And I'm used to reading plays in book form like this, so that didn't throw me off or anything. But still...I just didn't really like it.

I'm feeling lazy, so I guess the best way to organize my rant is in list form:

1. First off, characters. This play was not faithful to the dignity of the original characters. AT ALL. Ron. Every time Ron was "on stage" I just felt wildly cheated. Sure, Ron is supposed to be the comic relief. But he's also smart in his own way and full of more grit than he gets credit for--even if he struggles with self-confidence sometimes. The play-version of Ron was a hollow shell of a character, sort of like the ghost of Fred. And while Ron is the most vivid example of poor characterization, he was not the only one. I'm not sure if one character seemed really authentic to me. Maybe Ginny? It's not just the old characters who are cheated, it's also the new characters. The new characters aren't given convincing motivations for the actions they take, and that was very frustrating to me.

2. Holes in the plot. SPOILER ALERT...


....Time travel? Really? We all know you can't change time, right? There are no "other" realities. There is only what happened, and if someone went back in time, well, then, the effects of their actions would have originally existed. That's how it was in the third book. And of all the cool things that could have happened in Harry's life, why are we obsessed with time travel? There was a golden opportunity here to dissect Harry's future and the ramifications of all the amazing things that happened in Book 7, but instead the play just rehashes older books, and not in a flattering way. That's dumb. It's like there were no good ideas for the authors to run with, so they resorted to this. Annoying.

3. The deconstruction of the magical world. There are a few little things that just kept bugging me. It's like they tried to fit too much plot into the play, and to make things easier, they had to make things almost less magical. It was very easy for the younger characters to get away with doing stupid things because some of the rules of the magical world just didn't see to apply anymore, and that kind of convenient forgettery (just made that word up) in writing is lazy.

So there are lots of crazy things that happen in the play that I didn't discuss. I was actually more okay with unexpected twists and turns than I thought I would be. It was the bad writing that really got me. I mean, we all know that Harry Potter isn't the most wonderfully written book, right? Right. But it was complex and the characters were so real and the world was so believable and there were always beautiful messages about life at the core of the story. A lot of that was missing in the play.

So I'm basically going to treat Cursed Child like it is fan fiction. It's not part of the Harry Potter cannon, as far as I'm concerned. I don't read fan fiction, because I have better things to do with my time, and because usually it's bad. So what would be my recommendation for Cursed Child? Read it if it will drive you crazy not to. I think a lot of people like it more than I do, and that's fine. Whatever. But if you expect to see the real characters we all fell in love with, you might be disappointed

The Teddy Bear War Cry

Brynn has a new game she likes to play. It's called "Kill the Bear."