Book Review - Behemoth

So much to catch up on, so little time. I finished Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld, a couple of months ago and I must say, I'm looking forward to the third book in this series to come out.

I don't know if I was just in a better state of mind to read this book or if I really did like it more than the first book, Leviathan. Perhaps it was the fact that I wasn't too confused by all the made up words and places like I was in the first book. The story line was already set up for me going into it.

Deryn (who is a girl pretending to be a boy so that she could be in the equivalent of the air-force) continues on her journey trying to save her country while keeping her secret when she finds herself in more than one pickle. Meanwhile Prince Alek escapes and is left trying to decide what really is best for his country, only doing it behind closed doors so that no one may reveal his true identity,waiting until he can reveal himself even to them without fear of being killed. He makes friends with a one of a kind creature who seems to have a pretty wicked sense of intuition.

Deryn finds herself falling more and more for the prince making it awkward to keep up the boy act.

In the end of I give this book 4.25 stars. It was a very fast read with a new world to step into.

How Do You Know He Loves You?

Enchanted is definitely one of my favorite "feel-good" movies thus this song if often stuck in my head. In fact I have been thinking a lot about this very thing over the last few weeks.

My mom and I were talking recently about the need women have for their husbands to show and tell their wives constantly how much they love him.

My prince has yet to fail me. If anything I'm pretty sure his love for me has grown regardless of the difficulties we face.

How do I know?

1.) He hasn't left me or even thought of it despite the fact that I often feel like the crazy lady.

2.) The other night he offered to start looking right now for jobs in a different city where I

would be able to find a job in my field as well. (No this isn't an announcement)

3.) He will bring flowers home when I'm feeling a little bit down.

4.) He doesn't chastise me when I don't get as much done as I could/should.

5.) He finds ways to distract me from my current ailments such as puzzles and games.

6.) He takes care of the chores and meals when I can't and usually does so without much

complaint.

7.) He's pretty good about not solving my problems but rather being supportive and trying to be

understanding.

8.) He is constantly trying to build me up.

9.) My dreams and aspirations are just as important as his.

10.) He tells me ALL the time.

Oh and did I forget to mention that even after a week of doing little more than showering and putting on the pair of pajamas he still tells me I'm the most beautiful girl he's ever seen? That's right, absolutely no make-up, sometimes even the hair was lucky to get combed, no keeping up with the eyebrows, nothing. Best of all, I'm pretty sure he actually meant it regardless of how I felt about myself.

This list could go on and on. I have just felt his love these last few weeks when I needed it most and know that I am truly blessed to have someone like him in my life. It's how I am able to move on.

So Sick of Being Sick

This is going to be one of the venting posts, continue at your own risk.

So after my awesome ER visit for the stomach flu the doctor wrote up three prescriptions: 1.) To help my stomach problems 2.) To ease the nausea and 3.) To battle my anxiety. I left the hospital knowing that the next week wouldn't be fun and it would be a recovery week, after all I was pretty sure my esophagus and stomach had been left raw.

I didn't mind so much taking those three medications for a while. They relieved some of the pain and I slept through the rest. However, when I would fight the urge to sleep I apparently looked stoned. I went into my regular doctor a week later and she was shocked to see my prescription for the anxiety given my history and hate of a previous medicine. I had been given another anxiety medicine that was highly addictive, at the highest dose which could mean a terrible withdrawal process. Lucky for me I had only taken it for a week so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

My doctor kindly put me onto an anxiety medicine that was supposed to be easy to get on and off. What she didn't tell me was her definition of easy and what I should expect. From day one I was as sick as a dog. Not only was I feeling extremely nauseous but in a lot of physical pain. (Prepare yourself for a TMI). One side effect was the kind that sends you to the toilet every few minutes, and it wasn't to throw up thank goodness. Because of this side effect there were hours and hours of painful gas that blew through my stomach like that of train. When it was all over I could hardly move, my stomach was in so much pain. I would feel my "best" about and hour or more before I needed to take my next dose and then the whole process was repeated.

This led to many sleepless nights and days upon days of sitting on the sofa with a hot pad on my stomach as much as possible. My ability to eat or want to eat has gone way downhill. Last time I took an anxiety medicine it took me a week before I started to feel normal. My counselor also said it was a good thing my body was reacting the way it was so quickly to such a low dose. It was a sign that it was working and my body was recognizing it. I made it five days and to no avail none of the symptoms were showing any mercy and my anxiety and stress were actually going up. That's when I decided I couldn't go on another day. I couldn't even make it a week.

Yesterday I skipped my first dose. I was hoping that things would start to feel a little better but so far I feel as crappy as ever. I have mixed feelings about my decision which of course in turn causes more stress but I made a choice and now need to stick by it.

I hate feeling so sick! I hate medicines! I hate that there is really nothing at this point I can do to improve any of this except wait and hope that my choice was a correct one and in a few days I will feel more like myself, something I haven't felt for over two weeks.

The good thing? I have a very patient and loving husband who is trying his best to help me as best he can through this.

I'm ready to step out of this personal hell and move forward.

Keeping Up With the Healthy

So after coming home from a Spring Break filled with a bunch of crap food I made some serious goals to improve my eating habits. For one week The Prince and I were not going to eat any processed sugar but rather substitute it with things like this bowl of plain cheerios and strawberries (one of my fav's). In addition I was aiming to drink 8 glasses of water a day and working out.

I did really well the first few days, I found my snacking cravings went up as I got rid of the treats but that too became manageable.

Then I got sick and not just any ordinary sickness (no I'm not pregnant). I caught the worst case of stomach flu known to man last Friday. I had hardly eaten anything. To be exact I had one small bowl of cheerios and glass of milk in the morning and a glass of water in the after. Starting around four it all started coming out. To keep from going into grotesque details just know that for about five hours strait me and my toilet or were held together by strong bonds.

At that point The Prince took me to the er. I can't tell you enough what a great man he is. He stood patiently by the door listening to all those wonderful sounds just to make sure I wasn't dying, because I sure felt like it. There was even one particular time he came in to hold my hair back which was not exactly dry if you know what I mean. The hospital hydrated me, got my heartbeat down to an acceptable level, gave me some medicine for the nausea and some sort of medical cocktail to numb my throat and stomach so I didn't have to feel the pain for a while.

Here I am a week later still terrified of food and have thus thrown anything health related out the door. My stomach is still raw and having a hard time with digestion. One again the Prince came to my rescue buy going to the grocery store and stock piling on things I could eat like jello and pudding, crackers, juice, basically soft things.

I'm hoping that I won't always feel this way and I can someday return to a normal schedule.

"This is the Perfect Time to Panic"

This morning I received the following text message:

FWD: FWD: Go get gas because of the earthquake gas prices are supposed to go up 2 dollars in the next 48 hours.

These kinds of messages do nothing but cause panic and fear which is exactly opposite of what is needed at this moment. I'm sure we are going to see some after effects of the earthquake/tsumami that has just hit Japan. In fact there may be more earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, prices of food and gas may go up a little bit. However, everyone freaking out, running to the store to stock up on whatever you can out of fear is not going to solve anything. It may indeed do the opposite and make things worse.

With that being said, my mom always taught us, "If you are prepared you need not fear."

Life is going to happen. Chances are that at some point or another we will all be effected by natural disasters, losing jobs, pipes bursting leaving flooding damage, a food/water shortage, etc. These are things we can't control and shouldn't spend our lives worrying about all the bad things that could happen. However, it's not a bad idea to make preparations so that we aren't in panic mode when such events do happen.

For example, the Prince and I have a year's supply of basic food needs. It wouldn't be a year of luxury by any means but it's better than nothing. Included are things like wheat, rice, beans, seeds, salt, sugar, powder milk, etc.

We also try to always fill our cars up when the tank reaches 1/2 empty so that if we ever needed to leave in a hurry we will always have "some" gas.

Even more I feel that my peace comes from knowing that this earth is still full of good people.

Last fall our house was hit by a tornado. It was awful and scary but right after it passed neighbors were out and about making sure everyone else was ok. There were one or two families that jumped in their cars and took off while the rest stayed to care for one another as more tornadoes were on their way. Men from the community gathered up wood and drove out to our neighborhood just outside of town and started boarding up windows regardless of the pouring rain and hail, knowing another tornado could have hit soon. Within a couple of hours many people have offered up houses and meals to those of us who were displaced. The community came together to help with the clean-up. There was no way we were going to have to get through this disaster alone.

We all have been given talents of various natures and while some may use those talents for evil or selfish reason most people are not this way.

Life could get hard real quickly. Gas prices could jump by $2 in the next 48 hours. However, I no longer fear these situations. It doesn't mean life will be a piece of cake by any means but somehow everything is going to be ok.

Oatmeal Mask (Skin Therapy)

Not a bad picture right? Too bad it looks like I am morphing into a reptile because my skin is so dry. Every winter it is a constant battle but since our move to even higher elevations, dry skin and scalp have become my worst nightmare.

I know what everyone is thinking, you just need to use a better moisturizer and cleanser. That could be the case if my skin weren't so sensitive. Almost anything liquid base is sure to cause an allergic reaction on my face including; foundations, cleansers, moisturizers, toners, any expensive face product, etc. After one or two attempts with a new product I find myself itching all over. Even the products that claim to be hypoallergenic or "natural" give me grief.

I've all but given up on this battle until yesterday when I decided to try an oatmeal scrub. I looked online at the various scrubs. Some were more geared towards acne. I wish I could find the site I used yesterday but alas I can't.

I do remember the instructions though.

Mash up 1 banana

Add 1 cup of ground oatmeal

Pour in a little bit of lukewarm milk

Place mask on for approximately 15 minutes.

BEST THING I've done for my skin all winter.

Now you know me, I'm all about the laziness. Thus I didn't bother to grind up the oatmeal which is probably why is was harder to put on. I had to keep my head tipped back the entire time to keep the oatmeal from falling off, it was just too heavy.

I'm also thinking I could reduce the recipe to 3/4 of what it calls for.

With that being said after one scrub my skin was noticeable smoother. It's not perfect but certainly a good start. Now if I can find a true natural moisturizer...

Book Review - Princess Academy

I know it's about time I finished another book. In all honesty I had started another one, was about a hundred pages into it and decided I didn't like it. Thus I moved on to the Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.

While this wasn't my all time favorite book I still really enjoyed it. First off, it was a quick, no-brainer read that didn't have my emotions all over the place. It was a simple story with a couple of twists and of course a slight love triangle.

Written about a village far up in the mountains, Shannon Hale entices the reader to step into this somewhat magical realm where community and history keep this small world together. It gives meaning to one's heritage and a sense that no matter what circumstance we may find ourselves in, there will always be little moments to look forward to.

I loved the main character, Miri and her spunky personality. She takes on the liberty to learn things on her own regardless of her circumstances. This is something I wish more women would do, including myself throughout our lives. Money doesn't always dictate how smart we are or aren't. It's a choice.

All in all it is an enchanting story that ends with a happily ever after, just as it should.