52 Books: Books 34&35

So I actually finished both of these books over a week ago, just haven't had the time {or energy} to sit down and write a review. I seem to read books in pairs – as in similar topics. This always happens randomly, but it seems to happen fairly frequently.

Books 34 and 35 for the year are both biographies that fall into the theme of recovery. The first book: Manic by Terri Cheney is the very personal account of a woman who has lived with being bipolar for most of her life. Since my mom has lived with this condition for most of my life, I have a personal connection to this type of biography. I am so thankful that my mom has never gone through many of the things that Terri Cheney has endured. Her story is intriguing, but also made me sad for what she has gone through. Her story is not written chronologically, but the order is very fitting. I read this book in one setting and thought that it was a good book, but I have to confess that the best book I have read about being bipolar is An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison.

Excerpts from Manic :

I wanted to die at such a moment. When the world was at its best, when I could offer up my heart to God and say, thank you, truly, for all of it. It's not that I'm ungrateful. It's just that I'm not capable any more of the joy a night like this deserves.

The world is essentially bipolar: driven to extremes but defined by flux. Saints are always a stumble away from sinners.

If I've learned anything from life as a manic-depressive, it's that all things never stay the same for long. The cruelest curse of the disease is also its most sacred promise: you will not feel this way forever.

Never, but never, call a manic person "manic" to their face. For some reason, when you're in the very throes of it, the term manic sounds like the most degrading, insulting, offensive character slur imaginable.

...it's been years since I've had a full-blown manic episode, longer still since I have tried to commit suicide. Stability feels like such a precarious thing, dependent on just the right dose by just the right doctor. But still, somehow I found it... Life is not easy, but it's simpler now. I no longer want to fly kites in a thunderstorm. I have no interest in dancing a tango with a rip tide. I can leave my best friend's boyfriend alone...

The second "biography" I read was A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.

This book was intriguing in a different way. It recounts the six weeks that the author spent in a rehab center in an effort to save himself from the addictions that controlled him. The book was initially sold as a memoir, but the Smoking Gun released a report pointing out outright lies that had been fabricated for the story. Which makes sense since there is a lot of over dramatization and a feeling of exaggeration in the writing. Furthermore Frey spends a lot of time focusing on his negative view of AA and the 12 Steps program. He is repeatedly told by counselors that he won't make it without the steps and he continues to insists that he will, saying that the only thing that controls whether or not you do drugs is yourself. However time and time again, many addicts have proven that they need a belief in something more than themselves in order to quit their addictions. It is an interesting read, just know that it is not non-fiction {even if you do find a copy in the biography section of your library}.

Excerpts from A Million Little Pieces {note strong language throughout the book}:

You're strong enough to get your teeth drilled without drugs and you're strong enough to scare the s*** out of a bunch of hardened f*** ups and you're strong enough to do whatever the f*** you've had to do to end up like you are and you can't walk back into that clinic and try?

...Life is hard, kid, you gotta be harder. You gotta take it on and fight for it and be a f***ing man about how you live it. If you're too much of a pussy to do that, then maybe you should just leave, 'cause you're already dead.

The Gates are open and thirteen years of addiction, violence, hell and their accompaniments are manifesting themselves in dense tears and heavy sobs and shortness of breath and a profound sense of loss. The loss inhabits, fills, and overwhelms me. It is the loss of a childhood of being a teenager of normalcy of happiness of love of trust of reason of God of family of friends of future of potential of dignity of humanity of sanity of myself of everything everything everything. I lost everything and I am reduced to a mass of mourning, sadness, grief, anguish and heartache. I am lost. I have lost. Everything. Everything.

An addict is an addict. It doesn't matter whether the addict is white, black, yellow or green, rich or poor or somewhere in the middle, the most famous person on the planet or the most unknown. It doesn't matter whether the addiction is drugs, alcohol, crime, sex, shopping, food, gambling or the f***ing Flinstones. The life of the Addict is always the same. There is no excitement, no glamor, no fun. There are no good times, there is no joy, there is no happiness, there is no future and no escape. There is only an obsession. An all-encompassing, fully enveloping, completely overwhelming obsession. To make light of it, brag about it, or revel in the mock glory of it is not in any way, shape or form related to its truth, and that is all that matters, the truth.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

When it comes to naming your child there is a certain amount of pressure to pick a good name. Though as Shakespeare eloquently writes, a rose will still smell sweet regardless of its name.

Papa Jack holding Daniel {sadly this was the only picture we could find of Papa Jack}.

For us naming wasn't actually a huge chore. A few months ago we sat down and tossed around some names and Daniel mentioned that if we were going to have a boy he really wanted to use the name Jack. Jack was the name of his Grandfather or Papa Jack as Daniel called him. This man was very important to Daniel and instrumental in shaping Daniel into the man he is today. Unfortunately Papa Jack passed away about two years before I met Daniel.

Daniel and Cheree on Mount Rogers – the highest point in Virginia

When we finally found out that we were indeed having a little boy, Daniel and I discussed names over dinner. It was a fairly painless process and by the end of the evening we had narrowed our choices down considerably with Jack Grayson being the front runner.

Daniel with the wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands

Over the following weeks we would periodically mull it over before we finally settled on Jack Grayson Moore. Even after this determination we sat on the name for a month until we really felt certain this was the name we wanted to give our child.

Hiking on one of the balds in the Grayson Highlands

My dad actually offered some really great advice. He told us to yell the name out loud to see if it sounded right. So we did. We shouted it off of our back porch. And felt incredibly silly. But in the end, we were happy with our choice.

Hiking on one of the balds in the Grayson Highlands

Grayson comes from the Grayson Highlands in Virginia. It is one of our favorite state parks to visit as it is part of the Jefferson National Forest and Mount Rogers Recreation Area – famous for its open balds and wild ponies. We want our child to grow up loving the outdoors as much as we do. We look forward to taking him to meet the wild ponies, to hike the open balds and bike the Virginia Creeper Trail. 

Biking on the Virginia Creeper Trail

So Jack Grayson Moore is named in memory of his Great Grandfather and a chain of mountains that we love. We will be calling him Jack.

Biking on the Virginia Creeper Trail

Sweet Relief

I have mentioned before how much of a struggle heartburn has been for me. In recent weeks it has become increasingly worse – to the point that I wake up in the middle of the night almost in tears. This is saying a lot as I rarely cry {even during this pregnancy crying has been rare}. The only way I have been able to sleep is sitting up and popping Tums every 1-2 hours. The Tums work, they are just not long lasting.

Heartburn comes from just thinking about food or drinking a single sip of water or for no reason at all. It is particularly bad when I do eat or drink. Since I can't stop eating or drinking I have been coping as best I can.

I am generally not a fan of taking meds and I have to feel pretty terrible before I will take anything, but I have been at my wit's end with this heartburn thing. I tried Zantac {which made the heartburn worse}, and then Pepcid {which did nothing for me}, before asking my OB for something stronger. She gave me a prescription for Nexium. My mom and sister both had extreme heartburn during their pregnancies and Nexium worked for my sister, so at this point I was willing to try anything.

My ultimate test was taking my first Nexium last night before we went to dinner. We had Mexican which is my fave, but it also gives me the worst heartburn. After downing chips, salsa, a Chimichanga and some Dr. Pepper, I was getting nervous about how my evening would go.

We went home and watched a movie and I was able to lay down on the couch. And then we went to bed. Amazingly I didn't have problems falling asleep and even better was the fact that I slept soundly all night and didn't have any kind of pain whatsoever.

I know not everyone will agree that Nexium is the best option, but for me it is providing some much needed relief and I am ok with that.

Please pass me the purple pill...

Double Date Night: Urban Stack

{via}

Saturday night we met up with good friends, Chris and Courtney, for dinner at Urban Stack in downtown Chattanooga.

This was a "grown ups only" night out. Courtney said their kids were sad not to be included, but were excited about a night of pizza and movies at their grandparents. Courtney also mentioned that her 6-year-old son, Andrew, had inquired if we were going to talk about inappropriate things since there would be no kids around. Kids are so funny – thanks for sharing that with us Court.

Daniel was thankful to have a night where we talked about things other than baby stuff {after our experience registering at Baby's R Us, I think he is getting warn out on the topic}. Hopefully we didn't bore Courtney and Chris too much – though it is helpful to get advice from friends who already have kiddos.

Urban Stack has been on my list of places to try out in Chattanooga for a while. They are a gourmet burger bar that didn't disappoint. We got right in at 6PM on a Saturday night and stayed for almost two hours. We started off sharing homemade potato chips with a pimento cheese dip that was amazing. I really wanted to try the Gourmet Bacon Cheeseburger but opted out since I am preggo and am not supposed to eat soft cheeses. Courtney tried it and really liked it. I had a mushroom burger that was excellent, but I am looking forward to going back after November to try that gourmet burger with the bleu cheese. I can't remember what the guys had, but everyone was happy at the end of the night with their food choices.

This is a burger bar that we will definitely be visiting again.

The Stroller Diaries... misadventures on the way to becoming parents

Friday morning Daniel and I had an OB appointment. The best part was {should have been} the 3D/4D ultrasound. Unfortunately our little guy refused to show us his face. Everything else looked great. Hopefully he will be more cooperative when we go back in two weeks for my glucose test.

Other than our failed attempt at a 3D head shot, all appeared to be well. He is the appropriate size and is weighing in right at 2 pounds {a month ago he was 1 lb 1oz}. He was moving around quite a bit but I was still not feeling much – the ultrasound tech confirmed that my placenta is anterior {in front} which is probably why I haven't felt him that often. No worries though since he is healthy and growing. 

After our appointment we had lunch at Chick-fil-a before heading over to the dreaded Baby's 'R Us. I know that there are people who adore the whole registering for their baby experience, but Daniel and I are not those people. Mostly this stems from the fact that neither of us are really shoppers. When we do shop, it tends to be for big ticket items that we research like crazy before making any kind of purchasing decision.

Baby's 'R Us is a daunting place, though the process of getting started was relatively painless. We found ourselves walking around the store a bit overwhelmed before getting stuck in the stroller section. We had spent some time researching strollers online, but nothing really compares to actually touching them. All the while, we have continued to ponder "How often do these gargantuan travel stroller systems really get used... our parents didn't have these systems and we turned out fine..."

We would love a good jogging stroller but they aren't a part of a "system" and we will probably just get one off of Craigslist later...

That being said, we did spend some time fooling around with the contraptions. During our time in the stroller aisle Daniel found himself struggling to take the infant carrier out of the Graco Flipit Travel System. This system soon had him leaning the stroller down on its back and turning the infant carrier upside down in an effort to remove it. 

At this inopportune moment another customer {a mom} walked up to us looking mortified. She couldn't help but stop to inform us of the correct way to remove the carrier – evidently there is a red button you push. Who knew? We told her we were new parents to be and quickly assured her that we would never turn an infant carrier upside down with an infant in it. She probably thought we were out of our minds...

To make matters worse, after the carrier was removed, Daniel proceeded to collapse the silly thing so that we would have an idea of how {ahem} small it folds down to. Then he tried to unfold the stroller back to its normal stroller state. No dice. Neither of us could figure out how to unfold the stupid thing. 

On top of that, we couldn't find an employee to show us to fix it and there was no manual. I looked up reviews on the registery device which all touted how easy the contraption was to use and how you could unfold it with one hand without reading instructions. Blah. Blah. Blah. We were beginning to feel like we would make terrible parents...

I told Daniel that he should just to put it back on the shelf and we should just walk away but he insisted on rolling it to the front of the store to ask an employee to show him how to unfold it. Unfortunately for him, the lady from earlier was also at the front of the store. Thankfully it turned out that the stroller was actually broken and we didn't feel as incompetent as we were beginning to suspect we might be.

After this incident we checked out the S1 by Safety 1st AeroLite Premier Travel System Stroller which we liked better... though we still aren't sold 100% on owning a travel stroller system.*

We browsed the rest of the store, haphazardly adding appropriate items – mostly little things {the more expensive items were easy to add since we had done our research}. Finally we collapsed in the rocker section of the store and mourned the fact that {at some point} we still needed to go to Target {and possibly Walmart} to do this.

I remember how much we hated registering for our wedding stuff. We did get a lot of great things that we have used over the years. We also got a lot of things we never used or that we kept and used even though we didn't really like them or our tastes had changed. I feel like registering for baby stuff will be the same. What we think is necessary a year from now will be totally different from what we think is good right now...

*Note: If you happen to look at our {incomplete} registery, please do not buy us a travel stroller system – we added about five different models for further research. When we have made a final decision, we will delete all but one.

What's For Dinner?

Last week I didn't cook much... we were still finishing off the casseroles that I had made for Daniel so that he wouldn't starve while I was out of town.

Towards the end of the week Daniel started complaining about being tired of eating the same thing over and over again. This was a comical remark considering that years ago when we were first married, he would beg me to cook normal, plain dishes like spaghetti with sauce from a jar. It seems that he has gotten used to eating new things on a regular basis and was ready for me to start cooking again.

So this week I have gotten back on track. I made Vegetable Lasagna, Fajita Burgers with Parmesan Corn-on-the Cob and Steak Sandwiches with a side of Sweet Potato Fries. Daniel is happy and I am happy to be back in the kitchen.

In other cooking-related news... I had a major flop with a recipe for Peach Crumble that I tried last night. TOTAL.FAILURE. First of all, the peaches were white peaches and not very flavorful. Secondly the dessert tasted more like oatmeal than dessert. I was SO DISAPPOINTED. I don't repeat many recipes, but the Peach Cobbler recipe from Pink Parsley is so ridiculously good I may never try another type of peach cobbler again.

Flank Steak on Texas Toast with Chimichurri and a side of Sweet Potato Fries

Daniel gave it 4.88/5 stars. Recipe from Food52.

 Fajita Burger with Parmesan Corn-on-the Cob
Daniel gave it 4.82/5 stars. Recipe from GoodLifeEats.

Veggie Lasagna

Daniel gave it 4.72/5 stars. Recipe adapted from The Way The Cookie Crumbles.

Brown Butter Peach Crumble

Daniel didn't try it, but I was not a fan. Recipe from The Culinary Couple.

 

52 Books: Book 33

It's been a while since I wrote a book post. It has not been from a lack of reading, the two books on my night stand both happened to be over 400 pages and Moby Dick has proven to be quite tedious at times. Hopefully I will wrap it up in the next week.

The other book in my possession was What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. First off I have to say that I adore Gladwell's style of writing and his way of looking at the world. Tipping Point and Blink rocked my world and Outliers was good {though I didn't like it as much as these other three books}.

What the Dog Saw follows the same structure as the previous books, looking into the psychology and economics of why things are the way they are. It is my favorite way of looking at the world.

This book covers topics like: the collapse of Enron; the effect birth control has had on increasing the risk of cancer in women; what really constitutes plagiarism; can homelessness be solved by getting rid of soup kitchens and homeless shelters; and are pit bulls really dangerous… it really makes you think. 

I enjoyed every moment and I am sad that my journey with Gladwell is over.

Excerpts from the book:

...we associate the willingness to risk great failure – and the ability to climb back from catastrophe – with courage. But in this we are wrong... there is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable.

The world is not the world it was. And some of the risks that go with the benefits of a woman getting educated and not getting pregnant all the time are breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and we need to deal with it.

Simply running soup kitchens and shelters allows the chronically homeless to remain chronically homeless.

Under copyright law, what matters is not that you copied someone else's work. What matters is what you copied, and how much you copied. Intellectual-property doctrine isn't a straightforward application of the ethical principle "Thou shalt not steal." At its core is the notion that there are certain situations where you can steal.

"creeping determinism" – the sense that grows on us, in retrospect, that what has happened was actually inevitable – and that the chief effect of creeping determinism is that it turns unexpected events into expected events.

In the real world, intelligence is invariably ambiguous. Information about enemy intentions tends to be short on detail. And information that is rich in detail tends to be short on intentions.

Making warning systems more sensitive reduces the risk of surprise, but increases the number of false alarms, which in turn reduces sensitivity.

...sometimes genius is anything rarefied; sometimes its just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.

What does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children?

The dogs that bite people are, in many cases, socially isolated because their owners are socially isolated, and they are vicious because they have owners who want a vicious dog.