What I'll Do This Summer 2013

I haven't blogged in 5 months, but it's time for summer goals, so it's also time for a blog post! Here are the goals I've come up with for this summer so far.

1. Read the following classic novels - Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns, Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum - Originally this goal was going to be to read 5 classics, but things got a little out of hand. Most of these are shorter, so I still think this is doable.

2. Learn to bake an apple pie from scratch - Apple pie is probably my favorite dessert, so I should probably learn how to make one, right?

3. Take an old TAKS test online - This is super nerdy. But one day I was talking with Camille and Erin about the STAR test Erin's students were taking. We started wondering how we would even do on these tests now that we've been out of school for awhile. So I'm going to try it and see!

4. Read an astronomy book - I've been listening to podcasts from Star Talk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson and I've become really fascinated with everything about space. So I want to learn more! I've chosen a book by Neil himself called Universe Down to Earth and I'm pretty excited about it.

5. Go to the planetarium - After I finish the book above, I need to do this because I've never been! Plus my sister has a museum membership, so I can go for free.

6. Watch all the movies on my DVR - I've recorded between 20 and 30 movies over the last year that I still haven't watched. Some are from free movie channel weekends. 9 of them are Elvis movies from the TCM celebration of his birthday last summer. I can't wait to see my DVR with 100% free space...and to see these movies.

7. Catch up on Jeopardy - Similar to the above goal, on the downstairs DVR, my roommates and I have over 100 episodes of Jeopardy. We'll be having some major marathons, if anyone wants to join us!

8. Finish my Thomas Jefferson book - My eventual goal of reading bios on all the presidents is moving along extremely slowly. Yikes. And Jen, my official Jeopardy coach, has assigned me to make it through Monroe by the end of the year, so I've got work to do.

9. Scat Jazz Lounge - This was on my list last summer and I just never made it happen, so I'm putting it on here again.

10. Finally visit California - I'm going for about 2 weeks this summer and I can't wait! I have lots of friends to visit and lots of things to see and one wedding to go to!

Looks like I better get to work! What are your summer goals?

The Book List: 2012

Okay, here we go. The second annual, end of the year summary of what I read. Last year, I was a little disappointed with my final total for the year. I'm happy to say that I added to that number in 2012, though I still want to do better in 2013. Without further ado, here's the list. (R = a book I reread, BC = a book I read for one of my book clubs)

Shadows in Flight, Graceling (BC), Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (BC), The Name of the Wind, Let Me Be a Woman (R), Wise Man's Fear, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Out of the Silent Planet (BC), Thunderstruck (BC), Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, This Momentary Marriage, Around the World in 80 Days, Ragtime, The Once and Future King, Go Tell it on the Mountain, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (BC), John Adams, Anna Karenina, The Polysyllabic Spree, Ready Player One, Murder on the Orient Express (BC), True Grit (R, BC), 1Q84, Fall on Your Knees, The Map of Time, The Prisoner of Heaven, The Night Circus, The Hangman's Daughter, The Last Dragonslayer, Ready Player One (yep, again, BC), The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club (BC), The Woman Who Died a Lot, Robopocalypse, Neverwhere, The Princess Bride (R), World War Z (R), Harry Potter 1-5 (R)

So there it is. 42 books, 18,856 pages. 33 fiction, 9 non-fiction.10 repeats. 9 book club books (5 for one, 4 for the other).

The best non-fiction book I read in 2012 would have to be This Momentary Marriage by John Piper. The Bonhoeffer biography follows closely behind, Mindy Kaling's book was hilarious, and I loved the Duran Duran book, but Piper's book on marriage is something everyone needs to read. For married people, I imagine it would be a wonderful reminder of what marriage is supposed to be. For those who aren't married yet, I feel like it's so important to read this first and gain an appropriate perspective on what they should be looking for in marriage. Read it if you haven't!

My top 5 novels of 2012 are Ready Player One, The Name of the Wind (and I'm including Wise Man's Fear with this because it's its sequel), Fall on Your Knees, Neverwhere, and The Night Circus. If I had to pick only one favorite book from last year, it would be Ready Player One. I did read it twice in one year, after all. But in a year of pretty stellar books (I only read 1 or 2 that I just didn't really like at all), these are my top 5. They have mystery, magic, sadness, laughter, romance, and characters I fell in love with. Here's to more amazing books in 2013!

What did you read in 2012?

Learning about Entitlement

Over New Year's, I made my 3rd annual visit to see my best friend Jen in Phoenix and we talked a little about goals for this year. Not necessarily resolutions, not your typical things to achieve or whatever, but more like things to work on. Areas to grow. One of the first things that came to mind for me was that I want to make sure I'm working on getting rid of any sense of entitlement I may have in any area of my life.

This is honestly one of my biggest pet peeves - when people act as if they are owed something simply for existing or even act as if they're owed something for working hard, though they weren't promised that thing in return. My ultimate problem with this attitude is that it makes us forget the truth that we deserve nothing. Or more accurately, that we've only ever truly deserved one thing in this life (hell) and, if we're in Christ, He's saved us from that. A sense of entitlement completely demolishes our much more important sense of gratefulness. 

So while this is something that bothers me when I see it in other people, I know that I'm not without a sense of entitlement in areas of my own life. There are certainly things in my personal and professional and spiritual life that I feel I deserve, and I get bitter and angry when I don't get them. From something as small as the person in the next lane letting me over when I want them to, to something as big as being treated a certain way by a friend or at work, I feel I deserve things that, quite frankly, I don't. But if I don't constantly remind myself that anything good that happens to me is a gift from God, I can easily forget to be grateful. I can think I earned a friendship by being a good friend, instead of seeing that friendship as a blessing from a Father who loves me and provides me with a sweet friend when I know I am a sinner who can only be a good friend sometimes because He empowers me to be. If I forget that, I won't worship Him for that and instead I'll rest in my own perceived goodness and strength. And that's idiotic.

This year, I want to be grateful for what I get and grateful for what I don't get, because it's all God blessing me by making me more like Christ and causing me to rely on Him for everything. Every time I think I deserve something, I want to confess that feeling and send it far away. And anyone who's reading this can help me out by never telling me I deserve something. Never. Even if you're saying it to make me feel better or to be nice or to express encouragement or appreciation - please find a different way. Whatever it is, I don't deserve it.

(Political Aside: These won't happen often, because I don't like to talk about politics, but this has been on my mind a lot lately. There has been SO much talk about rights lately and it's driving me nuts. I know that the Bill of Rights and our rights as Americans and all that are beaten into our brains from an early age, but if we're believers, we're citizens of another nation first and I just don't see this much emphasis on rights in scripture. We are not owed the right to bear arms, or to marry whomever we want, or to have healthcare, or any of the other things everyone's fighting about these days. What would our country be like if we could stop insisting on our personal rights and instead look at all these issues in the light of, first, what would glorify God and, second, what would most show His love to the lost around us? Who cares what we feel we deserve if it doesn't lead someone to Jesus? Sure, we might have the freedom to carry a gun or do whatever other political issue is currently being debated, but if the fight over it makes Jesus look bad to someone else because they know you're a Christian, how can that fight be worth it? We should give up our freedoms for the sake of Christ, and we should remember that they're freedoms, not rights or entitlements. And admittedly I don't pay much attention to political debates and things, so I'm sure people will say I'm simplifying things or I just have it wrong, but that's just what's been on my heart lately. The end.)