What we've been up to!

So we are still not able to move home yet because of the tornado damage, but we have still been having a good time where we're at!  Here's some of the fun stuff we've done over the last two and a half months since the storm:
We spent the day at the park!  The girls love this park because it's so big and has lots of play stuff. We packed a big picnic and ate before they spent hours laughing and giggling with each other.

Zoo time!  We spent a few hours at the zoo, ate and played at Chuck E. Cheese and then went out for ice cream.  This was just a few weeks after the storm and it was clear how happy this day made them.  They enjoyed spending the day with just mommy and daddy away from all of the tornado drama.

We spent Easter away from home and Hads was scared to death that the Easter bunny wouldn't know that we moved so they wouldn't get anything.  So we made a special trip to see him and let him know that we weren't living at home right now.  He gave them a thumbs up and they were relieved to see piles of goodies on the table and tons of eggs in the yard on Easter morning!

My grandma goes to an amazing little church that really takes care of all of its members.  When they found out our house was damaged in the storm and we were displaced because of it they generously gave us a check.  We went with her to thank them so I had to get the girls all dolled up and looking pretty. 

This post is pretty picture heavy so I will leave it where it is and do another one at another time.  We are trying to fill their days with lots of fun stuff to do so that the time until we move back home passes quicker.  They absolutely LOVE living with their Poppy and Nana, but they miss their kitties desperately and they keep asking where such and such toy or book is.  So I know that even though they will be sad not to see their grandparents every day, they will be at least a little happy for things to go somewhat back to normal.  It's so odd to think that we will be going home to a changed house.  We are getting new floors throughout half the house and most of the rooms will be repainted.  We are also planning on putting them in separate bedrooms which will be a big change that I'm not sure they'll handle well.  I would have no problem letting them sleep together still, but Hads decides that at 5:30 am when she gets up every morning is a great time to shake her sister and get her up as well.  So we're trying to help Ans get a better nights sleep on her own.
I am so lucky to be these little girls mommy.  They drive me completely crazy sometimes, but knowing how close I came to losing them keeps me up some nights. 

April Reviews

 Here are the reviews for my April books.  I am soooo busy dealing with the house stuff that I really have put reading on the back burner, but I managed to eke out a few this month.
Click here to see my 2012 list so far!

1:  The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
My library had all of their mystery and thriller books half off in March so I bought several Crichton books.  This was a good sci-fi type of book, but I didn't really like how impersonal it read.  It kind of felt like Crichton picked up a medical book and just quoted large sections verbatim.  I didn't really feel a connection to any of the characters and I didn't really like how nice and neatly the ending wrapped up.  It was too anti-climatic for my tastes.

2:  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?  (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling
I saw Kaling on Jon Stewart a while back talking about this book and I thought she was hilarious so of course I had to get this book.  It was really funny in some parts and really *not* in others, but for the most part I enjoyed it.  I don't watch The Office so I don't really know much about her, but she came across as really sarcastic and really sweet.  I would recommend this as a great quick read in between books.

3:  Country of Origin by Don Lee
I looked this book up on Goodreads and was disappointed to see a lot of bad reviews.  I actually really enjoyed it.  The timeline confused me a little bit, I was never sure what was the past and what was the present, but the story itself caught me in its grasp and refused to let go until I finished it.  I stayed up until midnight one night reading on it because I just had to see how it ended.  I gotta say though, the ending was a little anti-climatic for me.  I was hoping for more oomph, but other than that I really liked it.

4:  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Oh, Water for Elephants.  How did I loathe thee?  Let me count the ways:
1-  You had Reese Witherspoon in your movie.
2-  Robert Pattinson fan girls.
3-  A book about a circus.
4-  I hate hyped up books.
So when I saw this at my library I snarled a little at it, but figured I'd give it a shot anyways.  And boy am I glad I did!  I really, really loved this book.  It wasn't a 5 star, but it was a definite 4 for me.  I had no clue what it was about when I started it beyond being set in a circus.  I had a hard time connecting the present day Jacob to the past Jacob and I really didn't get the whole obsession with Marlena.  I thought she was kind of a bitch and I didn't get how he was all of a sudden in love with her.  It seemed kinda forced to me.  This was an unexpectedly good read though and I would recommend it to everyone.

4:  Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade
I LOVED the first book in this series, so I have been waiting on pins and needles for the sequel.  I gotta say, it was a little disappointing.  I was really hoping for a little more build up to Alona and Will's relationship (or lack there of).  This had way to much side plot and not enough of the main characters together.  That said, I really did enjoy it.  I hope she releases more in this series, because I really like it.

March Reviews

Here are the reviews for all the books I read in March  To see last years list, just click on the link to the right. In addition to all the regular books I read, I am also going to try to read at least one Newbery award winning book, a non-fiction book and a classic story. 

Since I was recently displaced because of the tornado I might not get to read as much as I want to...  I am going to halt the Newbery, non-fiction and classic challenge until I get back into my house because I am just so busy because of the tornado damage that I barely have time to think, much less actively choose what books I read. 

1:  The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks
*sigh*  I hate to admit that I enjoy Sparks books.  He's such a douchebag, but damn the man writes great books.  I only read this because I thought whatshisname was sexy in the movie trailer.  But the book was actually really good.  Predictable and a little sappy at times, but what can I say?  I'm a sucker for sappy books and movies.

2:  Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne
I picked this up solely because of the title.  Since we're displaced I have to spend the few hours Ans is in school just running around town and most of that time is spent at the library making great use of their free internet.  I grabbed this because I was bored and had it finished by bedtime.  It was actually not a bad book.  A little kiddie, but I liked the general plot of a girl losing weight not because she wants to, but just to get out of doing something.

3:  The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
 This one had a lot of potential, but I didn't really like the way it was tackled.  If I was somehow given access to myself 15 years in the future, I sure as heck wouldn't wait to discover it and not look up all of my friends and family.  The whole book just didn't seem to be written the way a real 16 year old would act.  I enjoyed it, but not one I would read again or recommend.


4:  The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa
Oh my god, this book took me ages to get through.  I think I read it off and on for two weeks before I finally said screw it, and stayed up for over three hours to power through it.  It wasn't that it was a boring book, I just am not an Ash fan and to read a whole story in his POV wasn't my cup of tea.  The only saving graces in the book were Grim, the wolf and Puck.  And whatshername, the old dead gf was reallllllyy annoying.


5:  The Isabel Factor by Gayle Friesen
Meh.  This book was ok.  Not one I'd recommend, but it didn't bore me.  The main character I just wanted to smack upside the head for being so stupid half the time. 

6:  The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
This was another cheap library buy, and man, am I glad I only paid 25 cents for it.  Thankfully, it was a really short book and it only took me a day to read it.  I think Coelho views himself as a fable writer, but he really overestimated his skills on this one.  Veronika Decides to Die at least had somewhat of a plot.  This one just felt like he closed his eyes and let his hands write the story and not his brain.  I really disliked it.  I didn't hate it because it at least flowed well.




I feel bad writing these piss poor reviews, but I just haven't been in the reading mood this month.  I only do it to pass the time now instead of because I really want to.  Hopefully we will be back in our house soon and things will get back to normal.

Leap Year 2012 Tornado

This is what we saw when the sun came up last Wednesday morning.  An EF4 tornado ripped through not only our town, but our exact neighborhood.  Thankfully, we were already up at 4:30 AM, twenty-six minutes before it happened so we were expecting it.  But honestly, can you ever really prepare yourself for possible death?
When the sirens went off about two minutes before the tornado hit, my husband and I both looked outside with confused expressions because it wasn't raining, it wasn't windy, why the heck did they have the storm sirens going off?  We decided to go ahead and get the girls out of bed and under the mattress.  I grabbed the girls and their bicycle helmets while the husband got the mattress pulled off the bed.  By the time I got them out of their room and across the hall into ours, the house was starting to vibrate and my heart rate started to accelerate.  I barely had enough time to shove their helmets on their heads and push them under the mattress before the tornado hit full force.  The whole house was exploding around us and we could hear glass breaking all over and stuff being slammed against the walls.  My poor cat was running up and down the halls crying.
I honestly didn't think it was an actual tornado that hit us, just really strong winds.  The tornado hit before the sun came up so we could only see about ten feet in front of you outside.  I looked out the window in our bedroom after it was over and was really shocked to see half a tree in our yard.  I can remember looking at my husband in shock and saying 'Do you think it was a tornado?'  The husband slipped out the back door to walk around the house and see what all was wrong.  About ten minutes later he came in yelling that our neighbors trailer was missing.  It took three tries to get through to 911 because of all the calls coming in.  At that point I realized that we had actually just survived a real tornado and not just a freak wind storm.  It still blows my mind that it was classified as an EF4 with over 180 miles per hour winds.  I watch a lot of storm shows and when you see them on TV it's just a complete jaw dropper.  Knowing that we lived through that with our house (mostly) intact is amazing.  Our house is honestly the only building on our block that is going to be left standing after all the clean-up is over.  The house behind us is half gone and the one next to us is now located across the street. Once the sun came up the EMT's and rescue workers started swarming the town.  There was two that came over and had to ask us if everyone in our house was ok before they painted a spray painted a giant X on our window.  That really hit home for me how bad the tornado really was.
Later on that day we were watching TV at my parents and the national news started talking about it.  It was so weird to hear the name of my little town (which was constantly being mispronounced) all over the big stations. 
I have taken probably 100 pictures in the last seven days, but since we no longer have electricity or running water we cannot live at home so I can't upload them all.  Here's just a few that I managed to get on here:

This has been the most surreal week of my entire 26 years.  I went to bed Tuesday night all excited because we had just got our tax return money back that morning and I had ordered my BIGBANG CD and we were going to go ahead and book our Disney trip but I was too tired so I'd see we'd do it the next day.  Boy am I glad I said that because Disney is probably going to have to wait till next year.  We are going to need all the money we can scrounge up for insurance and gas since we live in another town completely.  The next day our whole neighborhood was destroyed, six people died (now that number is up to seven), five of those people lived in less than two blocks away from me.  I was interviewed by The New York Times and Piers Morgan on CNN.  The CNN thing was pretty much the highlight of my life.  Of course I wish the circumstances are different, but I don't think I've ever made clear how much I love CNN.  It is the only channel I watch religiously ever single day.  Anderson Cooper is my idol.  When they called to ask if I wanted to be on camera I almost cried.  Our town was under a curfew because of the storm though and I wasn't able to get in and out, but I still got to do a phone interview.  All last week we were hearing about all of the big name reporters being flown in to do coverage.  We left our cats there so I had to go back the next day to feed them and afterwards I walked around the block to see the damage and it was so horrifying.  When you see it on TV it's so misleading because the helicopters overhead were doing all of these big sweeping shots of the tornado's path and it looks like it's the whole entire town when really it was just our little neighborhood.  You can walk all the way around the main affected area in less than 15 minutes. 
Our Wal-Mart had just built a big shopping center and it was completely taken down to the ground.  Here's a before and after shot (not mine) of it:

So needless to say my posting will be sporadic at best for at least the next couple months.  That probably means no more k-pop song of the week for awhile which makes me sad since BIGBANG has released two new ones, EXO has two and in a couple weeks my all-time favorite k-pop group SHINee will be putting out a new album.  *sigh* 
More pictures to come whenever I can get them up!

February Reviews

Here are the reviews for all the books I read in February.  To see last years list, just click on the link to the right. In addition to all the regular books I read, I am also going to try to read at least one Newbery award winning book, a non-fiction book and a classic story.

1:  The Dragon's Child:  A Story of Angel Island by Lawrence Yep
 This was a spur of the moment pick at the library.  I've found that when I'm in the Juvenile Fiction section looking for books for Hads that I usually end up finding more for myself than for her.  This was a quick read, only about 120 or so pages, but it was really good at showing the history of Angel Island (San Francisco's version of Ellis Island in New York City).  The only problem was that I didn't really feel an emotional connection to any of the characters.  I could say it's because of the shortness of the book, but it was really the style of writing.  This story was based on true events in Yep's family and the story really read like a fact-by-fact account instead of a fiction story.  But that aside, I enjoyed it and am happy to know a little bit more about the conditions the Chinese faced in their immigration to America.

2:  Nothing to Envy:  Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
This was my non-fiction pick for this month and even though it took me five days to get through it, I really did like it.  The fact that North Korea is so similar to a Jewish concentration camp is horrifying.  The fact that most of the world are either not aware of this or choose to look the other way is even more so.  I couldn't believe some of the stories in the book.  I also watched the documentary Seoul Train while reading it and my mind was even more blown.  This was a really interesting book that I'd recommend to anyone.  The only faults I have with it are the author's style of writing.  She sometimes repeated stuff that she had already told us and a lot of her stories didn't really flow into the next chapter.


3:  Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
This was a Newbery book, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out HOW.  Most Newbery books I read deal with real life issues and how to overcome this.  This one was more of a kiddie fairytale.  I know Newbery award winning books are aimed at kids, but they usually read as older kids books to me.  This one was just a little to young for my tastes.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't really enjoy it either.  I also just realized that all three books I've read so far this month have taken place in Asia.  Can you tell where my interests lie?


4:  The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
My mom recommended this book to me as one of her favorite childhood books.  When I was 100 pages into it I texted her and dared her to re-read it again as an adult.  It's not that it was a bad book, as a lover of all things nature (I willingly read Robinson Crusoe just so I'd know what the tv show as about), it held my attention for that alone.  But the family was just all kinds of Mary Sue and it annoyed me.  This book should have been called Eat, Pray, Kill because that's all they did in the entire book.  They would pray, then go kill something and then eat it.  Sometimes.  A lot of the time they wouldn't even eat what they killed, they did it just for sport.  And I didn't understand where the hell they were stranded at.  Penguins, bears, ostriches, kangaroos, boa constrictors, types of pigs, monkeys, flamingos, and pretty much every plant you can possibly think of were on their island.  The dad was a walking encyclopedia of plant and animal knowledge and could tell you what every single purpose each thing had and immediately devised a way to use them to his advantage.  My biggest problem with this book was the lack of a plot.  There was absolutely NO conflicts whatsoever in this book.  Any problem they had was immediately taken care of with no difficulty.  I don't like my stories all neatly wrapped up in a bow.  I need something to root for and this story didn't give me anything.

5:  Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine 
A Newbery honor book, not a bad little read.  I think Hads would like it if she could get over the amount of pages.  About 120 is her limit so far and if they don't have a few pictures scattered about she gets antsy.  I read this ages and ages ago, probably in junior high, so I remembered the basic story but not the specifics.  I really like altered fairy tales, so this was a quick, enjoyable read to me.


6:  Rules of Attraction (Perfect Chemistry series) by Simone Elkeles
This was the second book in the Perfect Chemistry series by Elkeles (I read the first one back in January), and I loved it almost as much as I did the first.  She didn't change the formula any, Mexican boy meets rich white girl and lots of gang fights mixed in, but it was still a good read.  I know there's a third book about the youngest Fuentes brother so I'm going to assume the formula stays the same in that one, too.  I might hold off on reading it for awhile so that I don't get annoyed about it.

7:  Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
So I looked up all of the Newbery award winning books and counting all of the honor ones, there's a helluva lot of them.  Enough that I could read one every week for the next year and not have them all finished.  So I'm going to try and read more of them each month than just one.  This is my third so far.  This one was the grand prize winner in 2010.  It started out really s-l-o-w and at about 75 pages in after four days, I seriously thought about giving it up, but the side story in it was interesting so I kept at it.  The second half was where it really picked up and I zoomed through most of it in one afternoon.  Even though I think it might be a little confusing for younger kids, there was a ton of people and back stories mentioned that even confused me, I think it was a pretty decent Newbery winner.

8:  Dreams of Joy (sequel to Shanghai Girls) by Lisa See
I went to the library with the hopes of checking out Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by See, but it was checked out so I grabbed this one as a second choice.  I read and reviewed Shanghai Girls last month and really enjoyed it.  Joy, the daughter, was probably my least favorite character in the book so I wasn't antsy about reading this sequel, but it was pretty good.  Joy was still as big of a brat as she was in Shanghai Girls, but she matured towards the end and didn't get on my nerves as much.  The history in the book completely gutted me, though.  Switching babies and then eating them?  Gaaaghhhhh.  Glad I wasn't eating while I read that or I probably would have thrown up.

9:  Divergent by Veronica Rath
Oh.  My.  God.  That is the first thought that springs to mind about this book.  I freaking loved it.  The first 30-50 pages were a little meh to me and I sighed as I looked at the almost 400 or so pages I had left, but I persevered and by the end of the day I had almost 400 pages left because I seriously could not put it down.  This book is a lot like The Hunger Games in that society is divided into individual factions and each section is responsible for a certain thing and the groups do not allow inter-mixing, and there's a plan to overthrow the government and restore life to the way it was and both have a strong female lead.  But that's pretty much where the similarities end.  My favorite character was definitely Four because I loved that he didn't sugarcoat anything with Tris and didn't go out of his way not to hurt her feelings. 

10:  A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House
I saw this at the library and picked it up randomly, but it was a pretty decent book.  I'm not normally a fan of book club type books, but this one held my interest and I loved Vine and Birdie.  Aaron made my skin crawl, which was the writers purpose and he did a great job at it. I didn't really like the ending.  I would have rather it continued a little into the future so that we could see the aftermath, but overall it was a pretty good book.

11:  Impact by Douglas Preston
I read a joint book from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child last year and really liked it.  That coupled with my moms frequent raves over them made me search out another book by one of them. I really, really liked this one and plan to pick up more by Preston, but I did get sucked out of the story a few times by the inaccuracies.  I don't want to post spoilers, but I don't understand how a cataclysmic event can happen on both sides of the Earth, but on one side the story evolves as if it just happened, and on the other side of the planet you hear about how it has been known about for a long time.  It didn't make any sense.  Plus whomever edited this didn't do a very good job.  I am horrible at grammar, but even I know when to use you're and your or its and it's.  But plot wise, I really got sucked into this and would for sure recommend it.

Books I started but didn't finish:
1:  The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor 
I am 99% sure I read this book a loonngg time ago because I am a big Alice fan (even though I hated the original story) and love to read retellings of it.  But after 30 or so pages I had to put it down because it was just to far out there for me.  I probably enjoyed it the first time I read it since I was younger, but now it just made me roll my eyes.

K-Pop Song of the Week.

So I know that last week I squealed all about miss A's new song, and this week I am double squealing all over Big Bang's newest.  I honestly watched this video for the first time with my nose practically pressed up against the screen and my mouth hanging open.  I LOVE this song.  LOVE.  It's rare that I hear a new song and immediately take to it.  Normally I have will just like it and then after a dozen or more listening's over the next few days and I will become obsessed with it.  But this one I loved instantly.  I listened to it and then had to listen to it again.  And it's been that way on repeat ever since it came out.
The video, though?  Meh.  I've seen better.  Haru Haru, for example, is one of my top 5 videos of all time.  They literally took the emotions of the song and transformed it into a video.  This one just seemed kinda blah to me.
Here's how I think the video director's thought process went:
"Oh so you're singing about blues?  Well lets film you with a blue tint over the film to make it more obvious!"

"Lets color Top's hair blue to give an extra little in your faceness to the title of the song!"

Now don't get me wrong.  Top's hair makes go all completely fangirl spazzy:

And then when I'm done with that, I get up, look at it again and I do a little of this:

Which in turn makes the following happen:

But now that I think it was done just for the title of the comeback song, I'm a little disappointed.  I thought he was just dying it blue to be completely badass.  And while we're on the subject of Big Bang's hair, let me just rest my opinions here for a moment and ponder the meaning of the rest of the bands choices...
Taeyang:  Seriously bro, the mohawk is awesome.  We get it.  Try branching out a little.  Also, you look like Aunt Jemima with the bandana wrapped around your forehead.
Daesung:  I give you a pass.  Your blonde hair is ok with me for the moment.  I think the dark hair is better, but meh.  I'm satisfied.
GD:  You look like an Easter egg.  What is up with the changing hair colors?  At first I thought it was just his hat, but after I watched the video a few times I realized it was actually his bangs that were different colors.  Yellow, red, blonde and black were all the colors I noticed.  It was like this video was an advertisement for an Easter egg dying kit.
Seungri:   Spock called.  He wants royalties from you stealing his haircut.
Last opinion before the video.  The girl.  What is up with her weird, creepy dead eyed stare?  She looks like she's plotting which member would taste better in a casserole.  She also never closes her mouth in the entire video.  Sigh.

 

I am a loud and proud Shawol, but my second favorite fandom is definitely the VIP's.  The way they support Big Bang and made this at 8 million views after only a week is completely incredible.  This song is for sure in my top 10 Big Bang songs and might even be closer to top 5.

K-Pop Interruptis

So apparently I have been including too much k-pop on my blog and not enough of the girls.  According to some people *cough*whoshallremainnameless*cough*, this makes my blog unreadable. 
I disagree. 
Posting k-pop makes me uber happy.
Posting pictures of my kids makes me feel super creepy.
Plus I discovered Tumblr a few weeks ago and have been pretty much obsessed with it.  I would link to my account on here, but there's people I know personally that read this blog and as anyone with a Tumblr knows, you do NOT want family and family friends seeing what you post on there.  *shudder*  My mother would disown me.  So shoot me a message if you want awesome k-pop pictures, gifs and hilarious pictures on your dash.  I reblog dozens of things everyday.  It's an obsession and I'm not proud of it.

Anyways, here is a recent picture of the girls at their Chinese New Year (which for some reason was held a month after the actual holiday.  way to be on the up and up public schooling.)

See, they're still alive and breathing and all that.  We just haven't been doing anything interesting lately. 

K-Pop Song of the Week

I am sooooo excited for this weeks song because it's a brand-new miss A song!  These are the sounds I made when I first watched it:  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!  JIAJIAJIAJIAJIA!!!  EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
I've mentioned before how much I love, love, LOVE Jia and Touch does absolutely nothing to deter that.  Even though I love her the most with pink hair, the black is so gorgeous that I am completely fine with it.
This song, while not as immediately catchy and fun as Breathe or Bad Girl, really grew on me and I kept finding myself singing it all day.
The video starts out really neat with a funky beat and the girls all doing a kind of zombie dance, but then Jia started singing and I was kinda confused.  A great beat, with a slow song?  It didn't really hit it out of the park for me musically, but the chorus really stuck with me and that's what made me love the song.  Overall I really like this song and I know that the more I listen to it the more I will love it.  This is the first comeback of the year for my favorite bands and if they all come back this awesome I know it's going to be a great year!



How great do all the girls look with their dark hair and white clothes?  Their stylists for this video deserves an award because all the outfits are such good choices.
This video is so strikingly beautiful.  I feel like it could almost be a great set to a movie.  Most k-pop videos are bright and colorful and bouncy and this one is so dark and emo.  I almost love the video itself more than the song!