Books I read in 2011 - September through December

What a wonderful year of reading this has been. As geeky as I know this sounds, my books gave me something to look forward to on so many of my hard days last year.

September

 I finished the Hearts of the Children Series. I love this series so much!

October

I read the Wizard of Oz in one evening. It was a fun book. It made me want to read all the Oz books, but I think there are about 15 and, although they are probably all quick reads, I have too many other series I'm in the middle of.

Wicked was not my favorite book I read this year. It had a lot of sex in it and it was pretty dark. However, when it was over I found myself missing the characters.

I read Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way a couple of weeks before I gave birth. I was worried it was going to be too little too late, but I drew upon some of the things I learned while I was in labor. It was especially helpful to learn about the different emotional signposts of labor. I'd think, "Well, I'm still smiling and laughing. I know that means I have a long way to go still."

I loved The Help. I knew that I would. There were some disturbing scenes, but everything turned out alright enough in the end.

November

I loved The Two Towers even though I had a hard time getting through it. My mind wandered a lot during the descriptive paragraphs, but I love this story. I love Sam. He reminds me of my husband.

Oh how I love Percy Jackson. We really didn't enjoy the Lightening Thief movie, so I didn't expect much from the books, but they are so fun. Devan and I both flew through them. They inspired me to brush up on my Greek mythology too, so that's a bonus.

Magpie and Dilly is the first in a spin-off series and it's a prequel to the Buggy Crenshaw books. My aunt Mickey writes these books and this was definitely the best one yet. I loved the characters and loved the ending.

After reading the prequel I had to reread the first Buggy Crenshaw book. I enjoyed it so much more having just read so much background on it.

December

I like to read Pride and Prejudice at Christmas time. I think I've read it 5 times. This year I decided to do something different and read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's the original book, with extra zombie scenes thrown in. It was, of course, not as good as the original, but I did much prefer how Lydia and Wickham ended up in the end.

And of course, A Christmas Carol. I love this story so much. It makes me want to be kinder and more understanding. It makes me grateful for my family even if we have a tiny home.

Welcome 2012!

I am excited for this new year! 2011 was a hard year for me. I was pregnant for most of it and tired and stressed for almost all of it. Not this year! Our "joke" new year's resolution is no pregnancies in 2012. If I make it to the end of the year, it will be the first year since 2006 that I haven't spent part of pregnant.

My goals for 2011 were to watch less TV, spend less money, and increase my knowledge. I watched far less TV in 2011. At the end of 2010 I don't think I very often went a day without watching TV or a movie and most days I watched TV for a couple of hours. Now I'd say I watch TV 3 times a week on average and I don't think I very often watch for more than an hour. Now if I could just quit the internet too.

I did not spend less money. I probably spent more money in 2011 than ever before. But on the bright side, we made more money this year than ever before.

I'm happy with the amount of reading I did this year. At the beginning of the year I made a goal to read at least 4 worthwhile books in 2011. I read 39 books this year. I can't say that they were all the most important books ever written, but I can say that I learned something from each one of them and each one changed me a little bit.

I have so many goals for this new year. I'm so excited to be getting my energy back after a very hard pregnancy. I want to be so much better than I am. I want to be better about making bread and cloth diapering. I want to sew more and learn how to make quilts. I want to dress better and do my hair and wear jewelry more often. I want to play with my kids more and not worry about the house being messy. I want to go to bed every night with my dishes done, laundry folded, floors vacuumed, and garbages emptied. I want to spend quality time with my husband after my kids go to bed. I want to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier. I want to let Devan have more time to do what he wants and I want to spend less time doing what I want and I want to not be bitter about it. I want to teach Hannah to read. I want to stop putting so much pressure on Hannah and let her enjoy being little. I want to find enough time to devote to Ben that I won't feel guilty that he's the middle child. I want to enjoy my Joshua while he's a baby and not rush though these days. I want to banish these 30 pounds of baby weight. I want to replace all my household products with natural, homemade alternatives. I want to learn how to make my own soap. I want to go back to school. I want to spend less money. I want to buy a house. I want to make friends. I want to be a good friend. I want to be gentler and kinder to myself. I want to learn how to accept myself the way I am and now feel like I need to be perfect today.

My goals are too many and contradictory. I don't know what 2012 will bring, but I want to end this year better than I am today.

My work at narrowing down and focusing my goals has brought me to these 4:

1. I'm going to do 100% of my visiting teaching this year. Even if it's just a phone call or a note on their door, I'm not going to let a month go by without letting the women that are assigned to be know that they are loved.

2. I'm going to be healthier. I want to stop eating so much flour and sugar. I don't know if that means by this time next year I'll only be eating sugar once a month, or once a week, or just have cut it down to once a day. How ever little I improve, I just want to be able to look back a year from now and know that I've improved.

3. I'm going to be more patient with my husband and children. They are the most dear things in this world to me and they are the ones I take out all my stress and frustrations and insecurities on. I've lately been looking back on some of the things that seemed hard to me when I was first married or first a mother. It seemed hard to get all the dishes done everyday or to find time to read a whole book or to take care of one little baby. These things seem easy to me now and it's just because I've practiced and practiced and practiced. I'm realizing that anything in life will get easier with practice. I'm hoping that this year as I practice faith, and love, and patience, it will become easy for me.

4. Make friends in Washington. Does that sound pathetic? Oh well. That's probably what I want the very most in my life right now. I had so much fun in Utah. There are so many people there that I miss and it made me realize that as much as I love my family, I will never be happy here until I can make some more friends.