Favorite Photos of January

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Thistle

At the beginning of the year, I put up a post of my favorite dozen photos of 2019. I love photos. I have thousands of them. (Literally. I just ran a count and the estimated number by my computer is over 8000 – and that’s down a TON from the 15k+ I had when I KonMari-ed my digital photos in 2015.) And over the last few years, I’ve been a bit lax when it comes to taking photos. Partly this is because I have so many and feel like adding more would be excessive, partly because my personal situation has been very insular and monotonous during this time. When 2020 began, I decided to start taking a lot more photos again, daily, collecting them together in a photo app as a way to look back over significant moments of each month. I don’t keep all those pictures, but I’ve kept quite a few from January, and I’d like to document my favorites of the month.

From left to right: Morrigan hugs Ash on the day we were told that he probably had cancer and might not recover; my favorite park after rains flooded through it; me after falling during a balancing yoga pose – the photo was meant to be silly but I touched the button before I was ready and ended up with this photo, which I just love.

Top left: Jason took this photo of me right after I finished the first day of C25K successfully. Top right: a fellow hiker conquering the trail. Bottom: my running park flooded over after major rains.

From left to right: my cousin’s baby Ben, who I swear looks exactly like his father; a trail marker at an intersection where someone had chalked the word BURST; one of Ambrose’s senior photos, the only one he didn’t pose for, that I took before he knew I was snapping pics

Top left: Jojo’s “friend.” This little guy was living in our rotted out old French doors and Jojo would squeak and paw at him every day until we had a chance to replace the doors. Top right: Jason’s parents got him a 3D printer for his birthday, and this lucky cat was the first thing he printed. Bottom: a silly photo of my hiking group on the trail (photo credit to the woman conquering the trail in the second collage of this post)

As you can see, I’m not the best photographer and I don’t have the best camera – just an old iPhone 8 – but I still love taking photos so much and reliving all these little memories and fun stories when I see them afterwards.

What were your best captured moments of January?

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Sunday Coffee – January 2020 in Review

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Thistle

Let me just start by saying that January began on a wild, explosive note. I actually stayed up to midnight on NYE this year, and just a few minutes before the ball dropped, a sudden and excruciatingly strong migraine hit out of the blue. I don’t get migraines often, and this felt very similar to the pinched nerve I had after my abdominal surgery in January 2014. Every fiber of my body hurt, I was nauseous and dizzy, and I couldn’t see properly. The boys were off with Grandma, so Jason helped me get water, medication, massage, anything that might help. I’d had bad headaches off and on for a few days that I figured were related to my upper respiratory infection and medications. Maybe they were a prelude to this, though? Who knows! In any case, we missed the actual ball drop, and suddenly fireworks were all around us, and my Lunesta put me asleep pretty quickly. I woke up with no lingering effects. It was just so weird.

That was the note that began the rollercoaster of the first week of January. There were high notes – starting C25K with Jason, hikes with my meetup group, some late-arriving Christmas presents that I adore, etc – and low notes – most notably, my kitty Ash getting very, very sick. He’s ten years old, and I wasn’t expecting the vet to say words like “severe liver failure” and “discuss quality of life.” However, he began to improve after an antibiotic shot, and while we know he may not have much time left if the abnormalities they found were cancer, we were happy not to have to say a very sudden goodbye.

As you might imagine, I was quite overwhelmed and distracted this month. It wasn’t all bad, but it was quite intense, and not exactly what we were expecting from the month. It was an exercise in trying to stay afloat and not succumb to the pressure.

Reading and Watching
I read two really wonderful books this month: There Will Come a Darkness and The First Girl Child. Both really struck chords with me and are likely going to be in contention for best of the year, so that’s a really great way to start 2020’s reading list! Beyond those, I read an additional four books in January, including two rereads and one book that was on my top three most anticipated for the year. Other than one dud, I’m quite happy with my books this month.

In film, I started the month with a girls’ day out to watch Little Women, which was awesome. Might even be my favorite adaptation to date, and I’ve seen a lot of them! Otherwise, I didn’t watch much this month beyond old crime show reruns when I was feeling anxious. I’m super excited for an upcoming movie event in February that I managed to snag tickets for – a pajama and cereal-buffet movie screening of Howl’s Moving Castle. Woohoo!

Goals
A lot of my goals for the year were put on hold this month. Priority went toward caring for Ash, who is definitely not out of the woods yet. Because I had a lot of anxiety and felt quite overwhelmed and worried, I decided to hold off on some of my year’s goals (writing, volunteering at the library, etc) until the situation at home is a little easier. I did work as hard as I could at my fitness goals, though, with special focus on running, keeping all screens off after 9pm, and continuing to fight anxiety-induced agoraphobia by getting out of my house whenever I could. Not always perfect and not everything I wanted to do in January, but some progress is better than none. Also, I’m happy to report that Month 1 of my 20-20 Challenge went well, at least in terms of completing all my mini-goals. This means I get to pick a reward! Haven’t yet decided which one.

Health
I would say that my health was fairly neutral in January. On the plus side: 2o days of exercise (17 hours total); 14 yoga; 33 miles; completed the first two weeks of C25K; increased fruit and veggie intake; consistently drank enough water; got blood tests that showed all my health numbers are doing well (and that in fact my hormone levels are improved so much that my PCOS specialist said I didn’t need to get retested for a year). On the down side: severe anxiety with panic attacks (worse than it’s been in some time); too much coffee; missed several events due to mental health issues; no weight loss; been lax on both magnesium supplements and foam rolling; lots of bone pain especially in my feet; and the appearance of a ganglion cyst on my left wrist that will likely need to be surgically removed.

The most notable thing that happened in health this month was that I got a doctor to listen to me about the mounting symptoms I’ve been having the last few years. There have been too many times in my life where one tiny problem in my body caused widespread, seemingly-unrelated symptoms. Doctors tend to treat the symptoms rather than look for the cause. I have suspicions about the cause and finally someone listened. More labs and an ultrasound have been ordered. Fingers crossed that I have some answers soon!!

Highlights of January
As I said, it has been a rollercoaster month! Lots of highs and lows. Here are a few of the highs not related already above.

  • finally got to meet my cousin’s baby, Ben
  • discovered that my problems with commenting on Blogger blogs had to do with my browser (stupid Safari!) and as soon as I switched to Chrome, all was well
  • the trailer for Velocipastor – it’s so hilarious, definitely look it up!!
  • getting an offer on our house and finalizing negotiations – fingers crossed that all goes well to close mid-Feb!
  • Adventure Sync finally added to Harry Potter Wizards Unite!
  • finally took senior photos for Ambrose (had to do this ourselves, and we let him wear one of his cloaks for them, ha!)
  • new running/hiking shoes that I desperately needed
  • a guy at the library told me he liked my leg tattoo – only it wasn’t a tattoo, it was leggings, ha!
  • decided on and booked our big 20th anniversary celebration, an Alaskan cruise set for May!
  • Morrigan got safely up to Kansas to start school and has begun classes – he’s still in the adjustment period, but we’re trying to stay in contact quite often during this time

Coming up in February
It’s going to be a busy month. My nephew turns six, my cousin is getting married, we’re supposed to close on our house, we’ll be doing our taxes, and I’m currently scheduled for five hikes with my hiking group in the first half of the month alone, plus a 5K later in the month. I’ll also find out if I need wrist surgery this month, and get a few more medical tests/results. Plus it’s my last month at 40 years old, as my birthday is March 1st. With all this going on, I just hope that I don’t end up completely overwhelmed again!!

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The First Girl Child, by Amy Harmon (audio)

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Thistle

From Goodreads: Bayr of Saylok, bastard son of a powerful and jealous chieftain, is haunted by the curse once leveled by his dying mother. Bartered, abandoned, and rarely loved, she plagued the land with her words: From this day forward, there will be no daughters in Saylok. Raised among the Keepers at Temple Hill, Bayr is gifted with inhuman strength. But he’s also blessed with an all-too-human heart that beats with one purpose: to protect Alba, the first girl child born in nearly two decades and the salvation for a country at risk. Now the fate of Saylok lies with Alba and Bayr, whose bond grows deeper with every whisper of coming chaos. Charged with battling the enemies of their people, both within and without, Bayr is fueled further by the love of a girl who has defied the scourge of Saylok. What Bayr and Alba don’t know is that they each threaten the king, a greedy man who built his throne on lies, murder, and betrayal. There is only one way to defend their land from the corruption that has overtaken it. By breaking the curse, they could defeat the king…but they could also destroy themselves.

[Note on this description: Alba is born seven years after the curse begins. I’m not sure why the description says “nearly two decades.” The curse certain continues afterwards, and goes on for more than two decades, but Alba is alive during most of that time…]

I want to start by expressing that I don’t think I can do this book justice in my review. It was so good and I loved it so much that it’s difficult to write about it with any clarity. I got the book on a whim from Audible when it came up as a daily deal in mid-January. No one I knew had read it, and I’d seen no reviews or interest in it. It sounded interesting, though, so I took a chance. And I’m SO glad I did. This book is the second book I’ve read in January that is amazing all the way through. It’s a slow, carefully-executed fantasy novel built on Norse mythology and blood-rune magic. On this backdrop, a kingdom is suffering from an excess of men due to the above-named curse. Because of this, there are lies, secrets, raids, skirmishes with neighboring kingdoms, threat of sexual violence*, and lots of pointing fingers. As chaos pushes Saylok to the breaking point, individual relationships grow and flourish: familial, romantic, spiritual, protectorate, etc. The writing, from opening chapters to conclusion, is gorgeous. A wonderful blend of mythology, magic, and the consequences of greed and desperation.

The audio production is equally beautiful. The First Girl Child is read by Rob Shapiro. It’s my first experience with his narration and I’m totally hooked. He has one of those resonant, calming voices that matched the atmosphere of this book perfectly. I imagine I would have loved the book just as much in print, but I’m happy to have experienced it via audio.

*****
*No sexual violence is described in detail.

Posted in 2020, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Hand on the Wall, by Maureen Johnson (audio)

Posted on January 27, 2020 by Thistle

Note: This is the third and final book of the Truly Devious series, following Truly Devious and The Vanishing Stair. This review will contain spoilers for books 1 and 2 but not for The Hand on the Wall.

From Goodreads: Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph . . . She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century. At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers. Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.

Before I discuss this book, I need to go back a little to my thoughts on the first two books of the series. When I first read Truly Devious in 2018, the ending left me unsettled. Nothing was wrapped up. Elly, the student accused of possibly having a hand in Hays’ death, ran away, but there’s never any proof that she was involved in the death. It felt like an open-ended misdirect, and I didn’t start to feel better about this until I read The Vanishing Stair. In the second book, that ending is fleshed out a bit, and Stevie is very clear about what she did and didn’t accuse Elly of doing. Elly did some work for Hays, but she may have had nothing whatsoever to do with his death. There’s no proof of guilt OR innocence. And when Elly turns up dead as well, that points potentially down another road, depending on whether her death was accidental or not. Another thing that cannot be easily proved. But at the end of the book, there’s a third death, and by this point, no one really feels like these things are coincidental. The Vanishing Stair ends on a cliffhanger, but still felt like a solid, concluded book and made me feel better about the entire series.

Okay. Now to move on to The Hand on the Wall. There are two mysteries that Stevie is trying to solve. First, there’s the 1936 kidnapping and murder. Then, there are the present-day mysteries and deaths. At the end of The Vanishing Stair, Stevie believes she’s solved the historical mystery, and her deductions are further fleshed out in the third novel. This part of the book: wonderful. All the clues and hints and bits of evidence are stacked up to create a whole narrative. I loved it. On the other hand, the wrap-up of the modern-day mystery feels a bit…Agatha Christie. Now, that may have been the intention, as Christie is one of the main thematic elements in the series, but to me, that made the solution feel transient and arbitrary. Let me explain.

Years ago, I read And Then There Were None. I had mixed feelings about the book, and the main thing I disliked was that the last part of the book used a long info-dump narration to explain to the reader the mystery’s solution – a solution that could not have been figured out by the reader because the necessary clues were withheld. The end of The Hand on the Wall felt like this: the suspects were gathered, Stevie makes her accusation, and then she rattles off the solution step by step. Not my favorite method for ending a mystery, but hey, I can accept it as a throwback nod to the original detective stories. The problem is that no actual proof is offered that Stevie’s accusations and deductions are correct. The solution she puts forth could easily be applied to several other characters in the book – in fact, I suspected the entire time that she would be wrong and there’d be a twist to leave her alone with the REAL killer, something like that. The historical mystery in the book is fleshed out and detailed and very specific. The modern-day mystery is a bit more like the movie Clue, where it could end this way, or that, or like this…and that felt unsatisfying. Incomplete. With many elements skirted over or ignored or glossed over.

After finishing the book, I gave it a few days and began to re-listen, to see if a second read-through would help me to feel more resolved and satisfied. After all, I reasoned, I sped through the book very quickly, as The Hand on the Wall was one of my top three most anticipated books of 2020! I was entirely willing to accept that I missed clues along the way and didn’t see how things came together properly. In the end, I did feel somewhat better about the ending. When I wasn’t looking for a last twist, I was able to see something I didn’t notice as well before. The theory that Stevie lays out could have been wrong. She worries that she might be wrong. There’s only one small clue that points her toward one person rather than anyone else. Any actual evidence would have to come later, through police investigation rather than amateur speculation. Whether or not Stevie is right is somewhat irrelevant. At the end of the day, she’s still a teenager who wants to become a detective, with no resources and only her own observation skills to go on. This, I could accept. I still felt like the culprit could have been any number of suspects and I personally prefer a different kind of mystery wrap-up, but at the same time, I got my preferences in the piecing together of the historical mystery. I can be happy with that.

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Sunday Coffee – Planniversary

Posted on January 26, 2020 by Thistle

Jason and I celebrated our 20th anniversary back on December 22nd. One of my original goals of 2019 was to do something big to celebrate that anniversary, as we’ve never really done anything big for our anniversaries and it seemed quite a milestone. As the date approached, however, too much was happening. Morrigan’s navy situation was uncertain and we didn’t have a return date for him yet. We were in the process of buying a new house and getting our old house on the market. Plus there was the whole season of holidays, plus the kids being out of school, plus all the scrambling to figure out Morrigan’s next steps. We thought about throwing together a weekend in the hill country in a nice hotel, but 1) that was honestly not unlike other anniversaries where all we did was go spend a weekend away, 2) we didn’t know what our money situation would be with the house shuffling, and 3) we didn’t have a single weekend where we were both free. Eventually, we decided to put off our celebration until after the new year.

Then we put it off after Ash got sick.

Then we put it off until after we got Morrigan off to Kansas.

And then it was a month after our anniversary, and it started to seem a bit silly to do something now. I started talking about making our 25th anniversary the Big One, but I also knew that if we didn’t take action, the same thing would happen in five years. After all, we did the same thing at our 15th anniversary marker.

Somewhere in all of that, our anniversary celebration became known as the “planniversary” in our planners. We were always thinking of ideas and trying to come up with something that would feel sufficiently celebratory enough, and would be something we’d both want to do. This was the hardest part. Jason and I are very different in terms of  what we like and enjoy. Furthermore, Jason has a difficult time articulating his wants, and he tends to prefer to let others decide. But this was about US, not about ME, and I discarded ideas like a three-day cruise to the Bahamas, because that would be ALL ME and nothing of him. We went back and forth with ideas, and FINALLY, a month after our anniversary, Jason came to me with the itinerary for a week-long Alaskan cruise. That would fulfill both our interests and enjoyments, and is definitely sufficiently celebratory.

We booked our spots for May. It’ll be five months after our anniversary that we actually get to celebrate, but we found a week that will work for school, work, previous engagements, Morrigan’s college schedule, and our budget. We’re both very excited about this, looking at different things we might see or do at the individual stops. The month-long planniversary brainstorming was definitely worth it. Heh.

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When Anxiety Attacks

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Thistle

“People say depression lies. Anxiety is just stupid. It’s unable to tell the difference between things that are actually scary (being buried alive, for example) and things that are not scary at all (being in bed under the covers). It hits all the same buttons. Stop. Go. Up. Down. It’s all the same to anxiety.”

–Maureen Johnson, from Truly Devious

I was supposed to have a review up today for the third book in the Truly Devious series, The Hand on the Wall, but it’s not going to happen. I’d planned to work on it yesterday afternoon, only then I got a piece of news that caused my anxiety to skyrocket. I can’t talk about the news publicly, but I’ll say that it’s not bad – it’s just something that involves waiting and unknowns, and my biggest anxiety trigger is uncertainty. So instead of sitting at my computer yesterday, I spent the afternoon and evening with anxiety movement like hand-clenching and uncontrollable gestures, trying to stave off a full-blown panic attack, unable to do basic things like “eat dinner.” I’m feeling better this morning, but a review is not in the cards for a few days, so I leave you with the above description of anxiety. Johnson does an amazing job describing anxiety and panic disorder in this series, and I’m grateful to see this kind of faithful representation in a book.

Posted in Book Talk, Wellness | Tagged | 1 Comment

Wellness Wednesday – Extroversion and Agoraphobia

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Thistle

Extroversion and agoraphobia – it’s hard to imagine them going hand and hand, but sometimes they do. It’s taken a peculiar series of life events starting at a young age to get me to this point. I’m not going to hash over all that. The short version is that for all my adult life, I’ve wanted to be out and around people, and I feel better when I do. However, the default is to stay in because I get tied to a single place (which can be as small as a room depending on the severity of that moment’s agoraphobia). The irony of all this is that my agoraphobia becomes worse the longer I stay in place, and it improves when I am forced (one way or another) out of my comfort zone and begin to interact with people again. I’m not talking just family, the people I live with. I mean getting out into the world. Having conversations that go beyond polite small talk. Being with people out in the world somewhere.

November, 2009. I’d joined NaNoWriMo for the first time, and I’d forced myself to go to a meet-and-greet in October with the local NaNo group. I enjoyed the night, but now that it was time for the second meet-up, anxiety reared its ugly head. My agoraphobia was reasonably controlled enough to leave the house, but as I drove, things got worse. I was driving to a place I’d never been (cue severe anxiety) to meet with a bunch of strangers (cue more anxiety related to how I was supposed to find my group etc). It wasn’t the actual meet-up that worried me – I like being with people, and writers are my people! It was all the rest. I was coming up on an exit for a shopping center I knew well, where there was a bookstore I liked. I thought, hey, I could reward myself for my hard work by going into the bookstore and getting something I want, rather than going out to dinner with a bunch of folks I barely know! Agoraphobia vs extroversion; comfort zone vs making new friends. That time, extroversion won out, and you know what? I had one of the best nights of my life that night. I made friends that I still talk to a decade later.

(post-NaNo write-in, Jan 2010, with folks met because of the above)

I have a lot of examples like this: early Sparkpeople meet-ups when I didn’t know anyone; various book blogger meetups and conferences; creating a book club at my library that was open to the public; joining fitness groups and classes. Nearly all of the time, when my desire to be among people can conquer my fear for venturing outside of safe spaces, the result is positive. And yet…

December, 2008. My favorite singer in the world was giving the only concert he ever ended up giving with his new band (at least so far, but it’s been over a decade…). I’d gotten to meet him and two other members of their former band from the 90s the year before, two trips to New York that were incredible for many reasons. The moment I heard that this new concert was happening, I bought plane tickets. The date got closer and closer, and anxiety grew. My sister no longer lived in New York, so I’d be on my own. Shouldn’t have been a problem – one of the other two times I’d gone had been the same – but it was also winter, and I didn’t have the right winter clothes, and I’d gained a lot of weight and felt self-conscious, and technically I’d have to fly home on my anniversary so I’d miss that, even though Jason told me he didn’t mind, and… You can see where this is going. That time, agoraphobia won out. I canceled the tickets. I missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and still kick myself for that.

(July 2007, one of those previous meet-ups)

This, like my previous example, isn’t an isolated incidence. I can name dozens of times when agoraphobia and anxiety took something from me – school concerts and performances from my kids; missed doctors appointments I desperately needed; 5Ks I’d signed up for and really wanted to do; classes missed in college that caused slipped grades. You get the picture.

These two forces war within me all the time. It becomes simple math/logic: If agoraphobia is winning a greater percentage of time, then 1) it’s likely to win even more, and 2) I’m going to be unhappy and my mental health will be increasingly disordered. If extroversion can start getting some wins, then 1) it snowballs until (eventually) I resemble a well-adjusted, normal human being, and 2) these times stand out as the happiest times of my life.

One of my goals for this year is to help extraversion snowball. I’d gotten to a good place back in 2014 before my family began its insane moving years. I’ve recovered enough from those years to start thinking about improvement rather than survival. Because I live in a military town, many of the friends I had pre-Boston have since become virtual, online friends. I still have in-town folks, but not the larger circle of before. I’m going to build that circle again. It may take years, given my personal mental health limitations, but that is the goal. Join groups. Make groups. Revive old groups. Get out of my damn house. Push the comfort zone circle wider and wider until I can only barely see its barriers. Then guard those barriers vigilantly, because I do not want them closing in on me again.

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The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Thistle

When Libby Jones discovers that her birth parents have left her a house on her 25th birthday, she doesn’t know what to think. Then the house turns out to be dark, oppressive, and creepy. And that’s before she reads the articles about the crazy cult that lived there and the suicide pact that left her orphaned.

TW (book and review): Sexual abuse, sexual assault, child abuse, physical abuse

I heard about this book last month, I think. I put it on hold at the library and grabbed it as soon as it was available. Generally, I prefer mysteries to thrillers and I often find thrillers disappointing, so I was perfectly willing to try it out and return it unread to the library. Then I began reading, and the book felt far more nuanced than most thrillers I’ve read. There were three narrators: Libby, who now has to deal with the discovery of her true origin; Lucy, a homeless woman living in France with her two children; and Henry, a clear sociopath who narrates the goings-on in the cult-house before Libby’s birth. In the beginning, a lot is unclear, like the relationship of the narrators to each other. I enjoyed piecing together the mystery.

Then. Then came the middle of the story, and a particular moment where everything went sour. That’s when I should have closed the book, called it abandoned, and stopped reading. But as often happens with thrillers, I was too engaged to quit, too invested in the story, and I read right on through even as the book unraveled and made me feel sicker and sicker to my stomach. Everything from here on will be spoileriffic, so please stop here if you don’t want spoilers. Read on at your own risk.

***************
There’s a particular moment in the book where all these complex situations – the cult, the adoption, the homelessness, the abusive ex – go from explored to exploited. There is horrific sexual assault and abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, murder, and stalking. This would be fine, if the elements were there for some other reason than to shock the reader and move the plot along. This story thrived on knee-jerk reactions, and any subtlety that existed in the first half of the book went out the window. Furthermore, there was heavy reliance on a trope that makes me angry and sick every time I see it: the sociopath repressed homosexual who obsesses over an individual to the point of violence. Lastly, the characters suddenly grew unbelievably naive, and many of the plot elements were also stretched to the point of disbelief. Cops not even going to bother investigating the sudden reunion of a murdered man and his ex-wife when she’s disappeared without a trace? Sure, why not! Investigative journalist can find all the threads of this story and all the people involved when the police can’t? Makes perfect sense! Woman deciding a family member is trustworthy despite him giving her a false name, locking her into a bedroom overnight, and stealing her phone to spy on her? Um…

So yeah. This book fell apart completely. Not only did the threads not fit together believably at the end, but the unique and interesting elements that could have made for some great conversation were just twisted into something to gawk at.

Posted in 2020, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Third time’s a charm?

Posted on January 19, 2020 by Thistle

Morrigan starts school tomorrow. On Tuesday, Jason drove him up to Kansas. We were both planning to drive him up together, but then the school required him to come mid-week for a second orientation (first time wasn’t enough?). That, plus needing a full-time carer for Ash at the moment, meant that Jason drove up with Morrigan and I stayed home to watch over Ash and get the other two boys to school each day. Everything went smoothly, Jason got Morrigan moved into his new dorm, and returned home on Thursday. Tomorrow, Morrigan starts his third attempt at an independent life. We are all hopeful that this time, things work out in his favor!!

As for home, we had a couple bits of good news this week. First, we accepted an offer on our previous house. This is all still in the prelim stages, so nothing is finalized, but it’s exciting nonetheless. Second, we weighed Ash in on Friday, and in the six days since he got that antibiotic shot and began eating again, he’s gained 0.7 lbs! He’s up to 10.6 lbs and needs to gain about another 1.5 lbs to be at a healthy weight. He definitely has more energy and has spent a lot more time moving around the whole house rather than being confined to the bedroom for recovery.

The rainy season has begun here. It had been so dry for so long that I didn’t think about the rains potentially coming when I started doing outdoor couch-to-5K practices on New Year’s. I only made it through the first week before it started flooding every other day. And it turns out that the park I chose to train in – because it’s fairly level – runs right though a flood plain and has a big swath of it covered in water after big rains. Often, in other words. I’ve only been able to use the park ONCE in the last two weeks. Pretty soon I’m going to have to make a decision – keep running outside only as I’m able, or start again inside and just do outdoor walks when the weather is slightly nicer. Last time I did all this, I started with indoor runs, so that’s more likely to be my decision. I just hate to lose any strength/stamina I’d built up already. Ah well. It’s better than losing all that strength/stamina because I have to wait for the rains to stop, I suppose. I don’t think trying to run through running water – even a few inches of it – would be particularly safe, especially not with my messed up feet!

Anyway. Time of transitions and all that, boys back in school, Morrigan off to college, hopefully selling our house soon and having all our kitty-babies healthy…maybe soon my head won’t be wandering off in multiple directions at once…

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There Will Come a Darkness, by Katy Rose Pool

Posted on January 17, 2020 by Thistle

A hundred years ago, the last of the prophets disappeared. Society has corrupted, religions have splintered, and a new zealot known as the Hierophant is preaching the destruction of all who are graced with magic. Now a new prophet has arrived, foretold by the prophets of old, to either usher in or prevent an Age of Darkness.

Let me start by saying this: There Will Come a Darkness absolutely blew me away. By the time I was 150 pages in, I could already tell it would be a new favorite. It was the book I wish I could have written, a book I can and will read many times in the future. And I cannot wait for the next volume to arrive.

Five narrators tell this story. There is a murderer and her dying sister, an exiled prince in hiding, a runaway with dark secrets in his past, and the new leader of a group that has kept the old prophets’ final prophecy in secret all these years. Other than the two sisters, none of these narrators know each other as the book starts. Their stories develop separately until they begin to collide, weaving into a complex narrative as the reader tries to figure out what may or may not be true and/or relevant to the prophecy that encircles them. All the while, the Hierophant is inciting riots, killing innocent people, torturing enemies, and keeping his face hidden behind a golden mask. There is So Much Going On, and it’s wonderful from the very first page. By the second half, I could not stop reading. In fact, if I had anything to complain about, it would be that the second half sped up way too much, losing some of the breadth and rhythm of the first half. It’s not often that I say that a book feels like it needed to be longer, but this is one of those times. Another 50-100 pages filling out that second half would have made this pretty much the perfect book.

I’m going to say this again: I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. The flaws were so minor as to be insignificant, and everything – world-building, characters, writing, history, psychology – was spot on. Technically, this book wasn’t my first of 2020, as I had two rereads before it, but I’m very happy that my first new read of 2020 was this wonderful. Now the rest of 2020 has to try to keep up!

Quick note: This book is being marketed as YA, but it isn’t really YA. The narrators are late teenagers, but the narrative doesn’t focus on themes common to YA novels (even speculative/fantasy YA novels). This is built far more like modern traditional fantasy. It’s character-driven with emphasis on politics, sociology, and theology.

Posted in 2020, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment