Powering your Mind!!

I love reading books. I keep telling my children "Mommy's book collection is my legacy to you". The love of reading is a passion for me just like Music is apart of my soul and well being. I like soaking my brain full of knowledge. I typically have an open mind when it comes to books. No subject is off limits to me. I have a vast collection of books about the Holocaust. I have political books, books about faith, books about History, books that are fiction, non fiction and books which celebrities have written.

I make time in my schedule to read. I have 8 books ready for me to dig right in. I'm sure if I had free rein I would put my family into the poor house because of my love of reading. I have to use self control when it comes to buying books.

When I stop being lazy I may set up something on my blog of the books I have read. I don't know yet but we'll see. Here's my fall reading list and I'm hoping to finish these books before Winter starts.

The Roots of Obama's Rage-Dinesh D'Souza
Barefoot in Baghdad-Manal M. Omar
The Confirmation-Ralph Reed
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave
The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings-Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
The Federalist-Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

Coming later is Rules for Radicals and Propaganda. My husband couldn't get these two books at the bookstore yesterday because they didn't have them so I'm going to order these two off the Internet. It's like I need to know.

I don't agree with the Presidents ideology and it doesn't make me a racist but I also want to know where he comes from as a man. I want to know because maybe I'll get a better understanding of where his character is pushing for his policies. I'll be getting his books this winter.

Most of the books I have read in the last 6 months usually are not books I would choose to read but I feel it's important I read books out of my interests range so I know what's going on in the world around me. Would I typically read The Communist Manifesto? No, but I do want to understand Marxists and Communists. I normally wouldn't even read the Federalist neither but I feel obligated to read about USA History for my children's sake so they learn the truth about their Countries History then what the Progressives in this Country want you to learn. I'm learning more on Woodrow Wilson. Mr. Wilson was the first huge push on the Progressives in this Country. I would like to know how they think.

I always want to find the truth for myself. I want to understand more and learn more. You want to know a book that would blow your mind. Read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. The book horrified me. Lets just say after reading this book I'm awake now as in I will be more vigilant in what the Government is doing and if that means I have to stretch my mind to insanity I will. Take care, Peace!!

I overloaded my Brain!!

With all the reading I have done in the past month I kinda overloaded my circuit. Oy, it's giving me a massive headache. I can't seem to think well. I don't think this is a good thing. I need my brain or maybe I don't but still. I still have a lot of books to read this summer and the hubby and I are wanting to order some more books we feel we should read also.

It's so much information in a short period of time with so much to sink in. I forgot what school was like. I don't know if I will be able to do it. The hubby told me to slow down since I read Atlas Shrugged in 10 days. That's a huge book and a lot of information in it. I did it and now I'm on another. I believe it's important and my civil duty to read about things that will give me more insight into this crazy world.

One of these days I should take a break from reading for at least a week anyway. I love reading so I may get withdrawal but my brain is important HA!! Take care, Peace!!

Books are my Best Friend!!

I love buying books. I have so many books and I thought about getting a Kindle but you know what? The thought of having something in your hand to read then reading something off of a device is the best. One of the things my mother taught me which wasn't destructive was the love of reading. My children have a collection of books themselves. I don't have a problem spending money on books for them. They see a book and I'll get it for them. Right now, I'm kinda back logged with books which is fine for me because I will be busy this whole summer.

I should get in gear and make a list of books I recommend reading. I have so many it will take me forever and that's the books I have ready available. I have books stored in the garage I haven't unpacked yet.

I'm in the process of writing my own book. I would tell you about it but then it would be dumb of me. I got the idea from a dream I've been having for awhile now. I'm excited about this process of using my imagination to bring out a story. I'm not good at grammar and all that so I'll need some help when the time comes. Wow, I keep changing my tune on my life's journey. That's good I have passion on what makes me a happier person. If I don't get my book published I will still be happy about it. So many possibilities to one's journey. Take care, Peace!!

times stands still!!!

This past weekend was just a blast. The son was too cute doing the whole trick or treating. His speech therapy is doing some wonders. This August after his surgery he's doing leaps and bounds with his sounds. He's having problems with his "a" vowel but his e, i, o, u vowel's are coming along great. So when him and his sister went to the first house I heard him say Yum Yum's. He did that to each and every house we went to. So cute. So Sunday rolled around and I was too tired to do anything so I figured I would start a new book. I love reading and it's a good escape from the world for awhile. I figured I would read The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I sure loved the Twilight Saga so I figured I would check out her other book. I would have to say the whole body snatcher idea has been over done but I liked her take on it. I finished the book this morning and I enjoyed it greatly. I'm glad I go on my daughter's schedule or I wouldn't know what day it would be. I started the book Sunday and now it's Wednesday and where did the time go. I just got wrapped up into the story I couldn't put it down. I watched V last night and afterward I figured I would read for awhile and then go to bed early. The hubby says "Oh shit it's 1:oo am" and I was like WHAT? The hours didn't seem to go that fast while I was reading this book. So I forced myself to put the book down and go get some sleep. I hate having to put a book down when the story gets good because I'm nosy and have to know what happens but it was 1am and I needed to get some sleep. Wednesdays are my long and hard days feeling like a single parent. Tomorrow is our family vacation. The hubby has a week off starting tomorrow and I'm so loving it. I told him I'm going to get as much rest as I can. I hope the house doesn't implode because I decided to sleep in a few extra hours. Lots to do this week and then on Sunday something special is happening. Love life...Take care, Peace!!!

Busy week and New Obsession..oh my!!!!!

Well Easter weekend was great and my mother came into town Sunday night. I was a little stressed but I think I was reading into something which wasn't there out of habit. I'm just used to the past and had my guard up and I don't need to do that anymore. I think I'm not angry with my mother anymore which is good because the pain was horrible before. I can say I'm over the pain. It has taken me years but I feel like the chain has finally been released from my heart and my mother and I can have an adult relationship. Don't get me wrong I will never forget what she has done to me but I forgave myself and allowed myself to heal my heart. I say I forgave myself and not my mother because I wasn't allowing myself to forgive. I was afraid if I did start forgiving I was condoning the abuse. Once I realized I could forgive and not forget the pain slowly lifted from my heart. It's not like I was afraid to let go but more I was afraid I was accepting the abuse if I did. If that makes any sense.

The kids had a wonderful time while my mother was here and the son said Grandma. It was so exciting. He'll be two next Friday and he's finally having interest in wanting to talk. This past week he's been trying more sounds and trying to speak more words. I think he's going to be talking soon and I can stop worrying my little head. It's so hard when the daughter was talking great by two so I was worried my son wasn't going to talk. He didn't have any interest in making any sounds besides crying and screaming before. He rarely said momma and Daddy so this past week was exciting hearing him trying to make more sounds.

I got to start reading my new obsession the Twilight saga. The hubby and I had seen the movie a while ago and it was good for a teen flick and then moved on. On one of our weekly trips to Target I decided to pick out a new book and happened to see Twilight on sale so I picked it up. I heard the book was better than the movie so I wanted to check for myself. I was kind of curious what the hype was all about like when Harry Potter got popular. It's like you have to read the book so you don't feel like you're missing something being left out I guess. I didn't start reading it at first because I was too busy getting the house ready for my mother so the hubby started reading the book first. He was into the third book before I began the first to give me a head start. I read books fast and sometimes I can read a book in one day depending how good the book is. I found some time this week to sit down and start the first book. I would have to say the book was way better than the movie by far. The movie Twilight was a good movie and entertaining but the book was so much better and I couldn't keep the book down. Lucky my mother was in town or I would have seriously neglected the children. I finished all four books and was pleased to get my happy ending. I was wishing through the whole series I wanted my happy ending. I would have been so upset if I didn't. I don't get when the love story turns out bad and that's why I don't read romance or love stories because most not often then not the girl doesn't get the guy. I don't like tragic love stories because they just tear at my heart. It's the happily ever after I love and if it doesn't happen I get disappointed. Who doesn't want that?

On Thursday night the hubby and I had a date night and we went to see a movie Fast and Furious. It was a good movie and entertaining and after we were done I wanted to go and buy the Twilight movie. While we were at the store I bought the soundtrack too. I would have bought the 3D poster but I would have felt foolish because I'm not a teenager anymore plus where in my house would I put it so I just downloaded a Twilight Wallpaper for my computer instead. I want to know more about this saga. The second movie New Moon is being filmed and will be out in November. The hubby told me a friend of his said the author Stephenie Meyer was going to do the first book in Edwards point of view called Midnight Sun. Apparently some of her transcript from Midnight Sun was leaked over the Internet and she's not going to finish it. I'm quite disappointed. You can go to her website and read it. http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/. She has the first 12 chapters on her website and I loved what she had written so far. It made the other book Twilight better and the movie made more sense. Edward made more sense after I read Midnight Sun the first part anyway. I just had to laugh when the scene in the movie when Bella walked into the Biology Lab and met Edward for the first time and then putting Edwards point of view with it.....lets just say it was funny!!!!!! I would think of ways to kill her too. I just fell in love with the story and the characters are intriguing. Like Edward tells Bella in the movie she's his own brand of Heroin. The Twilight saga is like mine and I have to have more. I got sucked into the books, movie and whatever will come of Bella and Edward. I have to talk about Alice. She was one of my favorite characters. I would have liked Alice if she was a real person. I didn't think it would affect me so much after reading the books. Geez, it's only a couple of books but the storyline was so good and it's wanting me to have more. Like Edward said in the movie "Yeah. Um... I had an adrenaline rush. It's very common. You can Google it." So I have been googling for information about Twilight...maybe I should go to bed now.................................................................... :) Okay Take care, Peace...

There is no hope for me so save yourself!!!!!!!! Oh the horror...I got bitten by Twilight..Ha Ha Bitten..get it!!!!! Okay anyway maybe someone out there is obsessed or more obsessed then myself... I have to ask a question...are you obsessed with Twilight after reading the books? Do share? Leave me a comment!!!!

This is my History Lesson!

I read a great book yesterday called Sarah's Key from Tatiana De Rosnay. It was a great fictitious story about two different experiences wrapped into one from two different world but were linked by generations. I cried and it was a wonderful story based on a real event in French History during WW2. I decided to write about this time because for me History is a passion for me even if I don't talk about what my passions are besides reading and listening to music. I read a lot about books based about the Holocaust. Some of these books are fictitious and others are a persons memoir based on there time during the war. To me this time in History is important to remember and all the millions of Jews who lost there life because of hatred during WW2. Every Country has secrets and shame and these are the times in History we should remember not only to learn from our History but to remember these peoples stories and to not forget them. From reading this book I learned about one day, July 16, 1942. This day is so important because of the Vel' d'Hiv, is the name of the July 16, 1942 raid - Operation Spring Breeze - during the occupation of France by the Germans. The raids in Paris were one of several aimed at reducing the Jewish population. The Jews were rounded up on buses and sent to the Vélodrome d'Hiver which at the time was an indoor cycle track. At 4:00 am on July 16 1942, 12,884 Jews were arrested from there homes. They could take with them only a bed cover, a sweater, a pair of shoes and two shirts. 4,051 children, 5,802 women and 3,031 men. Most families were split up and never reunited. After the raids, some Jews were taken by bus to a concentration camp in an incomplete block of flats in the northern suburb of Drancy. Others were taken to the Vélodrome d'hiver in the 15th arrondissement, which had already been used as a prison in a roundup in the summer of 1941. This place had no lavatories and of the 10 available, five were sealed because their windows offered a way out and the others were blocked. The Jews were kept there with only water and food brought by Quakers, the Red Cross and a few doctors and nurses allowed to enter. There was only one water tap. Those who tried to escape were shot on the spot. Some killed themselves. After five days of staying in harsh conditions the Jews were taken to camps at Drancy, Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers and then to Auschwitz. The roundup accounted for more than a quarter of the 42,000 Jews sent from France to Auschwitz in 1942, of whom only 811 came home at the end of the war. Auschwitz is important to remember. History to understand the evil which happened here. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps. Auschwitz is located in Poland about 286 kilometers south of Warsaw. Its believed that up to 1.1 million people had died at Auschwitz during the war. Most victims were killed in Auschwitz II's gas chambers using Zyklon B gas. Other deaths were caused by starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and medical experiments. Auschwitz had three main camps, 1,2 and 3. Nazi party's paramilitary the SS ran the camps. Auschwitz I was the original camp, and it served as the administrative center for the whole complex. Auschwitz 2 was designed to hold several categories of prisoners, and to function as an extermination camp in preparations for the Final Solution of Jews. Prisoners were transported from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau in daily convoys. Arrivals at the complex were separated into two main groups - those marked for immediate extermination, and those to be registered as prisoners. The first group, about three-quarters of the total, went to the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau within a few hours and they included all children, all women with children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be fully fit. SS personnel told the victims that they were to take a shower. The victims would undress in an outer chamber and walk into the gas chamber which was disguised as a shower facility with complete fake shower heads. After the doors were shut the SS men would dump in the cyanide pellets via holes in the roof or windows on the side. In the Auschwitz Birkenau camp more than 20,000 people could be gassed and cremated each day. Those deemed fit to work were used as slave labor at industrial factories. At the Auschwitz complex 405,000 prisoners were recorded as slaves between 1940 and 1945. Of these about 340,000 perished through executions, beatings, starvation, and sickness. Sonderkommandos yanked gold teeth from the corpses of gas chamber victims. The gold was melted down and sent back to the Third Reich. The belongings of the arrivals were seized by the SS. They were sorted in an area of the camp called "Canada". The name "Canada" was very cynically chosen. In Poland it was used as an expression. The expression came from the time when Polish emigrants were sending gifts home from Canada. Medical experiments at Auschwitz Nazi doctors performed a wide variety of experiments on helpless prisoners. The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was Josef Mengele, who was also known as the “Angel of Death”. His interest in research on identical twins. Mengele performed cruel experiments on them, such as inducing diseases in one twin of a pair and killing the other when the first died to perform comparative autopsies. This was a hard time of History and one I will never forget. I have a large selection of books surrounding this era. I want to remember this time so these peoples lives were not in vain. I will always remember them and there stories. I could write more on this subject but it's hard for me and makes me emotional so I will stop for the day. Take care, Peace!

Running with Scissors!

The second thing I like most to do besides listening to music is reading books. I love reading about people and their lives. I got really interested in stories about Holocaust Survivors and children who survived abuse of some kind. When I first started reading in this genre I think it was more for me to learn about how to live without all the pain from my past. If these persons could over come some traumatic event and their trauma coming out with a sense of understanding for life, I could too. My life drama was on the minimal scale to these stores of survival which to me made me feel better knowing I wasn't alone in my loneliness thinking I can overcome my pain and suffering.

Okay enough about me. I read a book called Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. I would have to sum it up as a horrifying memoir of a boys life with a sense of being normal. This was a excellent book and it flowed from the beginning. I've read lots of books in my life and sometimes it takes a first chapter to get into the flow of the book and figuring out the way the author is writing. This book started out with good flow and it was easy to get into the story of the book which is a plus to me because I also hate having to read the first chapter twice once I figure out the flow. When I got into this book I couldn't wrap my head around this was a story of someones life. It was too crazy for me to think someone lived this life and it couldn't be a real life story. This kids life was crazy, chaotic and the people he was surrounded by were mentally unstable. The story was so brilliant and fascinating with a sense of normal. This kid was living this life in the sense this was normal to him. We as persons looking from the outside would think he was living some Bohemian life in a crazy world but to this kid it was his life and the author wrote it in a way this kid seemed ridiculously normal and his life wasn't the norm for children his age but the world he lived in was.

The book was about a child who parents divorced when he was 11. His mother was mentally troubled so she started seeing a psychologist for her problems and then one day she dropped her kid off at the Doctor's house. This family was a bunch of mixed matched group of characters in a rundown house described as falling apart and disgusting. The character I really enjoyed was the character Natalie. She was a 16 year old girl and when she was 13 her father give her to a has been 40 something Tennis Player and abused her. She came home with a large sum of money which her father kept for himself. When Augusten was 13 he came out he was gay and had a freakishly weird relationship with a 33 year old man who was the adopted son of the psychologist. There relationship lasted until one day the guy decided to vanish and was out of this kids life forever. Looking it from the outside I would say he was emotionally abused from his mother in her bizarre behaviour, his absent father, his new home of unique family members and his strange relationship with a man 20 years older. He never went to school, had the freedom any child would envy not having adults telling him what to think, say and do. He could live his life the way he wanted when he wanted. Like a bird flying free at the same time surrounded by strange and dysfunctional people. After reading the book I was very, I guess I would have to say disturbed. It bothered me to the point I couldn't believe a child lived this life and then at the same time in a world of crazy it felt like normal. It was an amazing book once you get over the shock of what the book was about and get over the fact this book had ridiculous amount of swearing in it.

Over all it's been one of the best books I read this year and that's says a lot because I've read a lot of books this past year and I found this book on the top of my list. This book isn't for everyone and the way I went into this book I had no clue on what the book was about. Knowing a head of time I most likely would have read it anyway. I guess with this book with amount of crazy and then troubled because this was someones childhood is enough to want to read the book. You learn to understand someones normal is another persons crazy. Thanks for sharing this story. Take care, Peace!!

Oh by the way, it was made into a movie. Go here. I think I'm going to have to check it out. A lot of big named actors are in it.

Cast: Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gabrielle Union, Alec Baldwin, and Joseph Cross playing Augusten Burroughs.

I think I'm more interested in what they do with the movie. The story is very deep so I hope they capture the story without showing too much.