Oprah



 

When I moved into my apartment with Jacob in March, I had a luxury I never had -- A DVR ALL OF MY OWN (OK, of Jacob's, too). I was too poor for DVR and fancy cable in college and my parents have all that good stuff, but only DVR for the living room -- the room I watched the least amount of my shows, since I had a TV in my room while I lived at home after college. I would DVR things and not watch them for months and my mom would finally delete them. Probably only fair.

But now, I DVR whatever I want. If in two months I still haven't watched the show I taped, it's OK! I'll watch it next time I have a break from school! Or never! Who knows! That's the beauty of DVR! Who knows when I'll get to watching O Brother Where Art Thou, which I have never seen and felt like in June it needed to be taped. Or when I'll rewatch Heathers which I felt like was a good idea to record in April ... one day! One day it will be the exact thing I want to watch!

Over winter break from school, I stumbled across Oprah's Where Are They Now on a Friday night while I was sitting at home by myself waiting to be the DD for Jacob and his friends.

I now DVR every single episode I haven't seen. This week I had 7 new episodes in my queue and I've already watched 6 of them in the last 2 days.

The thing about this show is that Oprah goes back to talk to some of her most favorite and famous interviews from her 25 years on her talk show. Some episodes she talks to celebrities, others she talks to the everyday people who had extraordinary circumstances to  end up on her talk show.

Also, Oprah revisits several people an episode -- usually about 6 main mini-stories. So if a story bores you, never fear, in another 5 minutes, it'll be someone else's turn -- OR, you know, since you DVR'd it, you can always forward through it!!

Something I've learned after watching probably 20+ episodes of this show in a month is: Wow, I watched a lot of Oprah in middle/high school. Almost every time they show an update from an interview given in 2002-2007, I remember watching it originally. Now, that probably makes you think I have an awesome memory (which, actually, I do), but some of these people you just wouldn't forget.

Plus, yes, I probably just watched a lot of Oprah.

Book #4

Adulting by Kelly Williams Brown
259 pages

I have very mixed feelings on this book.

I've been a fan of Kelly's blog Adulting for several years now. I often find myself laughing out loud at things she writes.

This book is a tongue-in-cheek "know-how" guide of how to be an adult in your twentysomething years. I can relate to a large part of the book, considering I lived at home in high school, moved away for four years, then had to return home after graduation for a year and a half. That weird in-between being a grown-up thing sucks, and that is exactly who this book is written for.

That being said, I didn't laugh out loud at all. I chuckled a few times, especially when she noted every adult should have an ice scraper in their car if they live in a cold climate, but if not, CD jewel cases work just fine -- I had to do just this literally less than a week ago. I could definitely relate to many parts of the book, but I just didn't find them nearly as funny or entertaining as I usually do on the blog.

Really, the best part of this book is realizing that according to Kelly's list, I am most definitely an adult. I do almost all of the things in our lists and I was surprised by how many of them I passed with flying colors.

Next up: Breakfast at Tiffanys and Three Stories by Truman Capote

Book #3

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly
368 pages

The Little Women Letters has been on my to-read list for around 3 years. It finally came up next on my list, and was happy to not have to put it on hold at the library, and was able to find it on the shelf.

Now, I was a Little Women fan as a child. I owned a very nice copy of the book (I may still have it somewhere at my parents' house) and everyone loves Christan Bale as Laurie! One of my best memories of Little Women is rereading it for my children's literature class I took in college. I loved that class (did you know you could get an A+ in college? It was the only class I got that grade in, and it looks kind of strange on a college transcript ...), and I really enjoyed rereading some of my favorite childhood classics.

In this book, we are asked to imagine that Jo's great-great granddaughters are living in London in modern times. We are then asked to imagine that somehow in their mother's attic is a whole bunch of letters written from their great-great grandmother, Jo March, to various sisters throughout her life. This really bothered me. Who kept all these letters? It'd be a different story if the letters were all written to Jo and she had kept them to pass on. But somehow all the letters to different people ended up in the same box in an attic? This fact really bothered me throughout the novel and is still bothering me now.

Anyway, the letters are book ends to situations in the modern-day women's lives. They are all obviously supposed to represent one of the March sisters -- Emma is Meg March, the responsible and sensible one, living her life in a normal, average, "the way you're supposed to" fashion; Sophie is Amy March, with a flair for the dramatics (both onstage and in her own life) and also takes a Beth-like turn for the worse in a medical scare; and Lulu is Jo March, the one who walks to the beat of her own drum.

The result is a little ... boring. And while the original Little Women is not known for its action-packed drama, I just felt like this book was just a little dry and slow for my tastes. Also, it jumped around a lot, from character to character to the point where I was confused a few times.

The highlight of this book were the actual letters written by Jo March, which were written in Louisa May Alcott's exact voice that it was hard to believe Gabrielle Donnelly wrote them. Definitely props for that.

At any rate, it's always nice to check off a long-time contender on my to-read list!

Next up: Adulting by Kelly Williams Brown

Girls vs. Little Women

I found this interesting, mostly since I'm currently reading a book based on the (modern) March family. And since I love Girls except for the episodes when they go home (so boring!).

Girls vs. Little Women

Book #2

Kate: The Future Queen by Katie Nicholl
384 pages

I have a huge, not-secret girl crush on Kate Middleton. She's just so glamorous! So effortless! So beautiful!

This book appeared on my library's new book shelf and I grabbed it without thinking twice about it. I was especially excited when I realized that it was so new that it included information about Baby George's birth from this past summer.

Almost as much as I love Kate, I also love biographies. This used to not be the case, but I read a Judy Garland biography several years ago that blew me away, and I am now reading several biographies a year. Just last year, I read a book about Queen Elizabeth, which taught me a lot about the royal family and how the structure works within today's society.

After I brought Kate home, I started thumbing through it (OK, I had to look at the picture inserts first ...) and was wondering if I would actually learn anything about Kate at all, considering I have watched practically anything American TV has put out about her in the last five years or so. But I was pleasantly surprised.

While this is not hard-hitting journalism or even a very serious biography on Kate, I definitely enjoyed it. I learned a lot about Kate's pre-royal family life, including interesting aspects about how her parents became self-made millionaire business owners in just a few short years. I knew her family was self-made money, but I was unaware of how quickly all of the business luck and savvy paid off.

I also enjoyed the tidbits of how Kate and William almost met many times throughout their young life (including actually briefly meeting at a party when they were teenagers). It may be silly, but any more that adds to the fairy-tale story is good for me!

I loved the descriptions of the royal wedding, especially since I was one of the millions of Americans that Nicholl writes about who woke up at the butt-crack of dawn to watch their vows. My favorite scene from the whole book is Nicholl describing Kate, after the royal wedding and celebration, in bed in robes with her sister Pippa watching the TV playback of her own wedding from earlier that day. This made me laugh, as it is probably something my sister and I would do if we were in the same circumstances!

Many of the details seemed less fact-based and more observation or opinion-based. But was I expecting this to be the greatest book I'd ever read? No. And I enjoyed the fluff of it all!

Next up: The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly

Alien

After listening for over a month, I think I've finally settled on my favorite song from the new Britney album. Is it this best dance song on the album? No. Is it the best love song on the album? No. Is it even the best Britney song on the album? No.

But I still think it's my favorite. It sounds like she's telling her truth for the first time in awhile. :)

Book #1

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
314 pages

This book has been on my to-read list for quite some time now. I think it was on the best-of some lists a few years back. It also is about Paris and has a nice-looking cover, so I'm in!

Hadley is an almost-30-year-old single woman who thinks there is no hope for her to ever find anyone to love. She falls in love with an unknown writer, Ernest Hemingway. They embark on a marriage and a journey that takes them overseas as Ernest begins some of his first important pieces of work.

I love the descriptions of post-war Paris, especially her descriptions about the clothes, booze and flappers at the parties they attended. I did not love the love story between Hadley and Hem, as it seemed, even from the first few pages, he was bad news for her.

If you're looking for a strong female character, Hadley is not it. I was frustrated with her throughout many chapters of the books. But real life is sometimes messier than fiction, and I will give her that benefit of the doubt considering she was, in fact, a real person, making real-life choices!

Overall, I didn't hate this book, but I certainly didn't love it either.

Next up: Kate: The Future Queen by Katie Nicholl

Suzy Q

I was logging on to post and this sweet princess decided she wanted to join. :)

Having a dog of my own has been a dream of mine for the last several years. I knew when I got a dog, I would be in a great place in my life. I knew by the time I got a dog, I would not only finally be out of my parents' place permanently, but also be making enough money for a dog to not cause a financial worry.

I knew Suzy would be good for my mental health, as dogs are known stress-relieving friends. I didn't anticipate all of the positives Suzy has had on my physical well-being as well. On a normal school day, Suzy and I take our long walk of the day after I get home from school (which has been pretty consistently 45 minutes earlier than before I had her which is a huge improvement for me). It allows her to stretch her legs after sitting on the couch all day (or recover from the party she has when we're gone, who knows?) and it helps me get out of the house and ignore any other responsibilities for about 20 minutes of my day. I'm walking more with Suzy than I was before, and she holds me accountable for our walks.

She's also kept me on a positive sleep schedule. I've always been an all-over-the-place sleeper. For years in high school, I probably slept about 4-5 hours a night. In college, I could never get enough sleep and would make up for a night out with friends with not leaving my bed until late in the afternoon. Neither of those are healthy! Suzy is ready for bed around 10 and expects me to get in there with her around that time. On the occasions this doesn't happen, I can tell she is annoyed I am staying up.

I've also been focusing on how much she eats so I am keeping her healthy. Not too many treats, not too many bones, only the best dog food for her based on weeks of research on ingredients and reviews. I finally started realizing that if I'm doing this for my dog, I probably should be doing the same for myself, too! I'm taking small steps to insure I'm putting more positives than negatives in my body.

Moving out and getting Suzy were the huge highlights of 2013. I'm looking forward to 2014 and being able to enjoy our little family with Jacob and Suzy. Our apartment has slowly turned into our home and I look forward to resigning our lease in a few months.