brr thru grey's

(i wrote this entry, reread it for general clarity editing and realized that it is very stream of consciousness, so i added some transitions.  that's literally how my brain works.  only when i'm talking, i don't usually add the transitions, and most of this would happen in my mind, so i'd be prone to tell you how cold it is today, then skip straight to grey's anatomy.  scott thinks it's hilarious.  oh, and speaking of mental narration, i've been listening to the sweetness at the bottom of the pie on cd book during my commute - it's set it england, thus has a british narrator.  as a consequence,  my mental narrator has had a bit of a british accent for the past week or so.  tally ho.)

i am so glad i'm inside today - it's currently 8* (feels like -9*!) with a high of 13*.  and, of course, snowy.  i don't think i have ever been so grateful for my attached garage at home, or my garage-under-my-building at work.  speaking of cold ...

we cut our christmas tree on sunday.  we were supposed to drive up to winter park with friends, but the snow storm began late saturday night and we didn't feel like risking our lives on berthoud pass just to cut christmas trees, so we found a tree farm up near greeley and went there instead.  it was cold, but fun.  we all got our trees, played on the sled with kinley, and got to watch our trees be shaken and baled to tie onto the top of the car.  all things considered, though - and i feel like a total grinch saying this - i think i'll be okay if next year we just go to a tree lot and make plans to go sledding with friends separately.  i'll probably change my mind on that by the time next december rolls around, though, so don't hold me to it!

when we got our tree home, scott chopped a few extra inches off of the bottom to get rid of some dead branches, then we took it in to put in the stand ... and it wouldn't fit!  we found a bigger tree stand at home depot, but by that point, we were running late to go back up to mike and maura's for dinner and hanging out/watching kinley decorate their tree, so we went straight there - we put our tree in the stand when we got home around 9 that evening, but have yet to decorate or light it.  maybe tonight.  we couldn't decorate it last night because ...

last week, scott would come home from work and say that he'd been bored all day (mainly because his coworker and boss just didn't have time to give him any training or set him up with files or data that he needed to get anything done).  yesterday, they evidently got things figured out, because the poor guy was at work until 9pm!  i say "poor guy", but honestly, i think he kind of liked it.  in a slightly overwhelmed sort of way, but he did like it - which is good, because it's his career, and i want him to be happy in it.  speaking of busy at work ...

i, on the other hand, am more or less alone in the office all week - one coworker is here, but all the executives are out at meetings this week.  thus, i have a few things to do, but in the 1.5 work days i've had thus far, i've caught myself up on the last 5 episodes of grey's anatomy on hulu.  i don't love the show enough to tivo it, but i do love it enough to make it my go-to show for watching at the office when it's just me here.

sheesh

i just finished madness, marya hornbacher's book about her bipolar - it was a much faster read for me than wasted and slightly less intense, but still, holy cow.  i am oh so very thankful that i don't have any mental illness to deal with, and also that my husband doesn't.  in college, i remember reading kay redfield jamison's an unquiet mind (among other memoirs about mental illness, like girl, interrupted and undercurrents), and while i haven't read an unquiet mind in probably four and a half years, the difference between bipolar i (madness) and bipolar ii (unquiet) is really startling.  to the best of my recollection, bipolar i is more severe and is typically marked by more mania and mixed episodes, whereas bipolar ii, while still clearly a major problem, is typically more treatable and involves more depression and fewer major manic episodes.  right?  either way, i feel like madness really rounded out my mental picture of bipolar.  not that it really matters that i have a well-rounded impression of bipolar disorder, but hey, i evidently find it interesting.

next up on my reading list is apparently the narcissism epidemic: living in the age of entitlement - i say "apparently" because i had placed a hold for it at the library and my copy came in this week.  then back to finish up the (i think) four books that i have sitting half-finished at home.  hmm.

and now, since i'm at work, i think i'll go do some work.  most of the office is out at meetings this week, so i'm just sending out some (and by some, i mean like 75) tax documents out certified, which is quite tedious work ... thus i wore my yoga pants and uggs into the office for maximized comfort, and plan on catching up on this season of grey's anatomy on hulu while i work.  i really can't complain.

how to understand a guy in 10 days

i feel like the theme of the books i've been reading lately is "how to understand guys". well, i guess angels and demons doesn't apply to that (which was a super fun read) ... nor does the latest j.a. jance mystery i'm listening to on the commute/workout rotation on my ipod.

anyway, i am reading two book specifically related to understanding what guys are all about, which is unusual for two reasons. 1) i don't typically read non-fiction. i do, of course, read it from time to time, but as a general rule, i just prefer to spend my pleasure reading time enjoying a good novel. 2) i don't feel like i don't understand guys. sorry for the double negative, but what i mean is this: i'm very happily married, scott and i scored insanely high on the compatibility portion of the prepare & enrich test in our pre-marital counseling, and i generally feel like i "get" him and where his reactions are coming from.

nevertheless, i've really been enjoying my reading. the first is shaunti feldhahn's for women only, which, as i mentioned last month, kelly recommended. the author did a bunch of surveys, analyzed the data, and came up with i think 7 categories of things that women need to understand about men. i think the thing that i most enjoyed about it is that it gave scott and i good stuff to discuss - about half of the stuff that the author said is true of the average guy, scott didn't think is true for him, but it was a lot of fun asking him the survey questions and hearing his answers. and i did feel like it opened my eyes to aspects of scott that i'd noticed but never really paid attention to before, or didn't know what to do with. very helpful, and very interesting!

the second is john eldredge's wild at heart, which scott actually recommended i read. it is a fairly controversial book in christian circles because of john eldredge's links with open theism, which basically means that god does not know or control the future. eldredge says he's not an open theist, but the stuff he says about god and risk taking and the future sounds an awful lot like open theim to a lot of people. anyway, that's a rabbit trail. because of that reason, scott had never read the book, but the men's leadership group that he's in at church had it on their required reading list, so he went for it. mid-way through the book (and while i was reading for women only), scott said that wild at heart does a great job of explaining guys and that i should read it - and even went so far as to suggest that i find a similar book that explains women that he would read. if you know scott at all, that's a super unusual statement. when we were getting married, i, being a book loving counseling geek, wanted to read every available book on marriage. scott's response was that people have successfully been getting married for thousands of years, and that we'd be wise and take counsel from other people (like the pastor who married us), but that we didn't need to read any books about it. or at least he didn't want to. with that in mind, when scott said i should read wild at heart, i went for it. and i've been impressed so far. the main thesis of the book is that men were created to be - wait for it - wild at heart, and that they need risk and adventure and pursuit. that obviously looks different for different people, but scott felt like it really applied in why he feels a desire to move forward in his career and get a grad degree. so i'm reading it, and 45 pages in at least, enjoying it. i'd recommend it to a friend.

books to read

this year was the 10-year anniversary of the shootings at columbine. the week of the anniversary, colorado public radio did a big series of interviews with people related to the tragedy; one of the interviews was with dave cullen, whose book columbine was released for the anniversary. i decided to check it out from the library, and after a month and a half on the wait list for it finally picked up my copy last week: it's good. dave cullen is a journalist who began covering the story the morning of the shootings, and uses the book to do an in depth exploration of the day of the shootings, dylan and eric's motivations and experiences leading up to april 20, and the fallout for the media, the sheriff's department, and for the families and survivors after the fact. it's intense, for sure, but well worth it - one of the quotes on the back of the book equates it with capote's in cold blood, and i'd say that's pretty spot on. one thing i thought was interesting was that he addressed a lot of the myths surrounding the shootings. most of what i remember hearing about columbine was cassie bernall saying yes, the trench coat mafia, and that the killers went bowling (i was a self-absorbed 16 year old living in illinois at the time, forgive me), but apparently most of what the country heard are half-truths that he unpacks over the course of the book. anyway, you should definitely check it out, and be prepared with at least one or two kleenexes nearby.

a book i haven't read yet but have on hold at ye olde library is shaunti feldhahn's for women only. yesterday afternoon, kelly and i were discussing the simple dollar's incredibly sweet tribute to how great his wife is, and she mentioned how some of the things tsd appreciates about his wife are opposite of how she tries to treat her husband. (ie, tsd likes his wife to correct his little mistakes, while kelly tries to overlook mistakes and appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into them.) she recommended the for women only book, which is a relationship book written by a christian author that uses stats and interviews with men as the basis for her suggestions. the part kelly and i were discussing reminded me of the love and respect method that i remember hearing about in grad school - basically, the premise is that women want love and men want respect. anyway, i thought it sounded super interesting, so i'm going to read it. kelly did caution that it's helpful reading it in part with your husband, because every guy is different and the things that may be enlightening regarding some guys is completely inapplicable to yours.

and, if you're in the mood for chick lit, i highly recommend melissa nathan. despite the fact that i love chick flicks, i've always looked down on chick lit - maybe because so much of it is dominated by pink covers starring sassy girls wearing high heels and going out for drinks with strange men. (or at least, that's been my impression ... i honestly don't think i've read any chick lit pre-melissa nathan.) a friend who is very smart and academic and was an english major in college recommended melissa nathan, though, so i figured she couldn't be that awful. plus she gave me two of the books in time for a week i spent completely alone in the office, so i had plenty of time to ease into the idea of reading chick lit. not going to lie, i kind of love melissa nathan and her books. they're fun and funny and non-smutty, and they make for a great lighthearted read.