Year 2 week 6: new quilt post

Baby Quilt

This week isn't going to be about a book, it's a quilt week y'all. The quilt this week is for one of the amazing ladies I became friends with while I was in nursing school. There were six of us that became a little group. We would study, cry, drink and try to get through this nightmare of nursing school together. They are some of most driven amazing ladies I have even met. Their passion to become an RN knew no bounds. Through changes of the whole nursing program and instructors going out of their way to ruin our lives five of the six of us are now RNs. I am the only one that didn't finish. I was twenty-nine years old with a two and a half year old. I have a reading and spelling disability and a husband. The longer I was in the program, the deeper I became depressed. I have never thought of harming myself, but during this nursing program I started thinking that my husband and son would just be better off if I wasn't in their lives. I was missing whole sections of my son's life because even if I was home with him. I would be doing homework or studying and studying and did I mention reading three hundred pages of readings a week. If I had figured out earlier in life I wanted to become a nurse, before kids and a husband and life happened, maybe I could have made it through nursing school, but that wasn't what happened. In some of my darkest days, I mean deeper depression then even when I lost my own mom, something happened. Maybe God or the universe or something else made it possible for me to be carry my second child. We hadn't been trying and it came as a total surprise, but we were going to have another little person in our lives. It's rather funny/weird in a way that we have been trying for over a year and a half and haven't been lucky enough to have another little human in our lives right now, and when we weren't even trying we made the most amazing little girl. I truly believe that our daughter came about because I needed to open my eyes. Something had to change, and after talking to my husband only about thirty million times I told him I needed to be done with this journey. Not once did he tell me what to do. He only was a sounding board to let me bounce ideas off of. I really hope I would have made a good nurse if I would have pursued that line of work, but maybe I would have been crap at it. Who knows? What I do know is that I don't regret quitting. I know I can be the woman (mom, wife, friend, Christian, human) I want to be. I also know that I would trust everyone of those ladies with my life and all of my loved ones lives as well. They are all amazing individuals and I am insanely proud of all of them. I hope to God they also like all the baby quilts I have made for them as well.

Year 2 week 5: The Secret Garden

This week's book:
The Secret Garden
By Frances Hodgson Burnett

This week's book was a book that our little princess and I have been reading together on the sofa. I have been having an amazing time with just the two of us at home. This summer was filled with the kids trying to kill each other and driving me slowly insane. Needless to say, it's been fun to have just my super chill calm baby girl and I. She would climb onto the couch and would listen intently to me reading all about the little children in the story. The book had illustrations on every page, so I do suppose that did help the cause.

I do have to admit that I had not thought about this book in about twenty years. I saw the film adaptation all the way back in 1993 and totally remember it being gorgeous, with the sets and gardens. I also remember kinda hating all the characters in the story as well. As an adult and a mother I still agree that the main characters are for the most part super whiney. If you know me, you know I don't tolerate whining,not even a little. I would still recommend reading this to your child, or for your child to read it.

Year 2 week 4: Still Life

This week's book:
Still Life
By Louise Penny

This week's book is the One Great Read (which is the book who is picked by the local library, for everyone to read around town). Still Life is the first book in the Inspector Gamache series. My sister a few months back read the most recent book in the series and really liked it, so I was thinking I might like this book. A few of the people in our book group liked the whole series and that gave me even more fuel to want to dive into the book.

I'm going to be honest, I could not get into the book. I had nothing to distract me from the book, my life was pretty chill this week and I still couldn't enjoy the book. I mean I had no interest in any of the characters. The book is a murder mystery and I literally could have cared less who killed the victim. When I spoke to my sister, she said the author had her own way of writing, and I told her that I just don't think the author had found her voice in this book yet. Every so often I read a mystery novel and am never keen on how they turn out. I always say to myself “why did I read that?” Regardless, I don't want to recommend this book.

Year 2 week 3: Black Klansman

This week's book:
Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime
By Ron Stallworth

This week's book was flipping amazing. I know I normally talk a bit before I dive into talking about the book but this week's book deserves my full attention. I really enjoyed this book. I ended up reading it in three days. I saw it on the shelf at Walmart and promptly put it in my shopping cart.

If you don't know the story it sounds like a piece of fiction, but it's definitely a completely true story. In the 1970’s, a young African American police officer named Ron Stallworth saw an add in the newspaper for membership to the local chapter of the Klu Klux Klan. On a lark, the officer called thinking he may get a pamphlet and that would be it. Quickly it became apparent that they wanted to recruit him. Clearly the biggest problem was that obviously the KKK would not let an African American cop into its inner circle. So a plan was hatched. One of the department undercover narcotics officers would be the face of Ron Stallworth during the investigation while the real Ron Stallworth would do all the work on the phone. The investigation ended up leading to a lot of good information and stopped a whole batch of cross burnings. The phone calls even lead to the real Ron Stallworth talking directly to the Grand Wizard David Duke on countless accounts, which ends up being actually pretty funny. The book is very well written and not boring, which it could have been because there was a lot of information packed into only two hundred pages.

One of the other reasons I read the book so fast, along with it being really a well written book was the fact my husband and I wanted to see the film adaptation of the book. The film is pretty amazing itself. Obviously they jazz it up and put more action in it to make it a more dynamic film, but the film was good. All of the actors did a bang up job. Denzel Washington’s son played Ron Stallworth in his major motion picture debut, and was great. It's funny, if you close your eyes while he's talking you definitely think it's his father talking. Topher Grace (Eric Forman from That 70’s show) is amazing in the film. The bit of humor I found in his portrayal of Duke is Grace's stories of how he prepared for the role. Another weird fact is that the actor who played his father on That 70’s Show (Kurtwood Smith) played a KKK member in the early 1990’s in the film A Time to Kill. Adam Driver, who plays Kylo Ren (Kylo Ben according to my children) does a pretty good job as well. All around a pretty good film, and I would definitely think and hope there are some Oscars given to the film.

All in all it's a good book/film. I really wish I could see the author, he's coming to speak in my hometown and my father offered to take the hubs and I but unfortunately we will are taking our kiddos on a mini break. I would recommend both the book and film to anyone.