Finished

I have successfully finished Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah! It was a great, easy read. I found it to be a very much needed, but dreaded, reality check. Sometimes when you get caught up in life you start to forget about important moments that will mean the world to you later. This novel had death, divorce, love, lust, sisterhood, tragedy, secrets, and new beginnings. Every emotion that is possible seemed to be brought about in this story. I know I have mentioned some about the novel, especially that which I connected with but there was so much more than I could even put into words! A mothers haunting secret and the story she tried to tell for decades was finally revealed to her daughters that so desperately needed to hear it. It was the moment in the story where everything in their lives start to make complete sense. We call these "aha" moments! I enjoyed every bit of this story even though I was crying each time I read it. There was just so much pain, hurt, truth, and heart in this story it was hard not to get emotional!!! 

I recommend this novel to anyone interested. I will give one warning: A mothers fight and love for her children can create the most unthinkable damage among a family. 

The Suspense Is Killling Me!

This week I have not read as frequently as I would have liked. However, I was reading for a longer period of time each time I read. I am at the climax point in my story and it is really hard to put the book down!! I love that feeling! There are some really sad parts in the story that make it hard to read but I keep on reading because I know that in the end it will be worth it. A lot is happening right now and some of it is very relative to my life. My mother and father are both experiencing health problems. They each have had a few tests done to try and figure out what is going on but so far there are no answers. My mother actually goes this week to get another, more invasive, test that hopefully will give us some answers. In the story, Meredith's mother is very sick and the doctor just seems to think that it is her grief but they believe it is something else. As it turns out, there might be another explanation to all the confusion and their mother hurting herself. She was living in Russia during the Soviet war and terrible things happened to her. So, now they are on a journey to dig deep into what happened to their mother. There are two sisters in the story: Meredith and Nina. They are very different. I am noticing that I can relate more to Meredith than to Nina. I mostly relate to her feelings, actions, and beliefs. They are women on a mission to find out the true life of their mother. The story just keeps getting better and better. The suspense is maddening! I have to say that, even though this is a different kind of situation that they are going through, reading this story has actually made me think more about my parents and their problems. I have really started to evaluate some of the things I would need to take care of or what I would want to do to help them out. I just did not ever think that I would have to worry about it so soon. I know that whatever happens we all will be very supportive and there for each other just as Meredith and Nina are in the story. It is amazing how a story can relate so much to past experiences, present situations, and future endeavors. 

The Truth Hurts

This week was a little harder for me to actually sit down, relax and read. I was so busy with trying to get all my homework completed before the weekend because we are celebrating my daughter's second birthday!! We have family coming into town and that makes it a little harder to do homework on the two days of the weekend that I do not work! Anyway, I completed most of it and still managed to make time to read for this week, although I had to stay up later than normal to complete that task. 

I was able to make a couple connections with the novel I am reading this week. Some were very frightening because you never want to think about detrimental events in life that you are unprepared for. I found myself taking special interest to the character Meredith. She has a family and runs her deceased fathers apple orchard. She has many struggles in this story because she has never gotten along with her mother. Her mother was not the caring type that hugged, kissed, or praised her children. She was always very distant and never understanding. I love my mother to death but she was similar. She seemed very distant sometimes and unable to understand what I was going through as a teenager and young adult. Her mother, my grandmother, got very sick with ovarian cancer when my mother was a teenager. She never really had a mother figure around when she was going through high school and shortly after she graduated my grandmother passed away. So, my mother never learned how to be a mother because her mother was sick all the time and was in and out of the hospital while my mother was in school. The story has really made me think about what kind of  mother I want to be to my daughter. In the story Meredith does the same kind of thing. She has two daughters and she calls them everyday and makes sure that she is always there for them. But her marriage is starting to fail because she is so wrapped up in how to take care of her mean mother that has been very confused lately, taking proper care of the apple orchard, and keeping her own motherly duties. She is facing so much that it has really made me think about how prepared I am in dealing with the death of a parent. I know that I will be taking care of the finances and anything in their Will but I have never discussed with them any specifics. I do not even know whether or not my older brother knows that I am the one they have chosen to take care of that stuff. There are just A LOT of questions I have in my mind about being prepared for their deaths even though I DO NOT want to think about it at all. But sometimes it is hard to face the truth of the matter because it hurts SO BAD.

What a Tearjerker!

I have recently started a new novel by Kristin Hannah called Winter Garden. A few ladies that I work with have read her book called Fireflies and recommended her books for me to read. I have not read for pleasure in a long time so I wanted to make sure to get a good novel to start and since Fireflies is currently being read by another lady we work with, I bought Winter Garden. Little did I know that I would be crying after the first chapter!! Every time I read it is hard not to cry. Every part of the story really touches your heart and brings you memories you may have wanted to forget or hold on to forever. By that I mean,  we all have had experiences with the death of a family member. Each one of us can relate to all the emotions we feel, the distinct things we said or didn't say, and the struggle we face for months to come. This book brings about all those thoughts, feelings, and memories of their death. The words are so moving it is hard not to cry. It also makes me think about my living family members and how much I love and care about them. In a sense, it makes me dread the day when they are taken from me and will only be a memory. It is hard for me to handle death so, of course, this book is a real tearjerker for me! Even though it makes me cry I will fight through every page even if they are soaking wet by the end.

It's the simple things in life...

If you have read the "About Me" section in my blog you would know that I have a daughter that is almost 2. Everyday she does something to amaze me. Since this blog is all about reading I wanted to talk about how much she loves it when we read to her. 

She has several books. For a while, she was really into Duck and Goose by Tad Hills but now she has branched out and likes most of her books. However, she does have one favorite that I have read an enormous amount of times this last week. It is called Happy Easter Mouse by Lauren Numeroff. She has had this book since her very first Easter so it is very funny to see how she picks her books out and suddenly she has a new favorite that has been on her shelf forever! Anyway, one of the first times we read this book last week was shockingly funny to her. She would belly laugh after the first page! If you have not read this book it is about Mouse who decorates his Easter eggs. When he wakes up on Easter morning the eggs are hidden all around the house. After the first page he finds two eggs on the counter by the milk carton. My daughter found it to be hilarious! So, naturally we would start to read the book with disbelief that the eggs were hidden all around!! Just by simply putting our own silliness and surprise voice into the reading she would crack up laughing harder. 

It is the simple things in life that make me so happy and grateful to be a mommy!! I love that she is interested in having books read to her and that she has her own personality and opinion about them. Who knew a book could be so funny to a 2 year old??!!