Book Habits

One thing that I love about Jonesy is that he has the same passion for reading that I do.  Not only a passion for reading, but also a passion for BOOKS (more on that later).  I was reading a book blog that I follow the other day and I found this fun survey.  Enjoy!

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack:
Not usually.  But when I do, I prefer chocolate!

What is your favorite drink while reading?
Water...that way when I spill I can still read the words.
Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
No!  But it's not a bad idea.  There have been so many times I've read something in a book that I love and want to remember forever but I instantly forget it after I turn the page.  I'll have to work on that.  And no, writing in books doesn't horrify me...as long as it's nice and neat and pretty.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
I'm a fan of Dog-ears.  Don't hate me!  It's a lot better than laying the book flat open.  (Jones does that....and he gets mad when I dog-ear....kinda wierd)

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?
Mostly Fiction.  Willing to do Nonfiction if I HAVE to.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
I used to have to read to the end of the chapter.  NOW, though I can stop mid-sentance (and often have to...children do that to you).

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?
NO!  Books are sacred!  You can write in them because it doesn't make them any weaker.  Throwing them is bad.  Very bad.  So is standing on them, scooting on them, and blowing your nose on them (that's what I tell my kids, anyway).

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
Nope.  I'm very good at figuring out what a word means through context.  Either that or I just ignore the word and move on.  I bet I'd be smarter if I looked the word up.

What are you currently reading?
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

What is the last book you bought?
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
One at a time people!  When I was a kid, I got two books from the book fair.  Charlotte's Web and James and the Giant Peach.  I didn't want one or the other to feel left out so I read one chapter out of one and then one chapter out of the other and switched off so I wouldn't hurt their feelings.  I've grown up now and realize that books are very forgiving and are ok with it if you read another book before you read that one.
Do you have a favorite time/place to read?
I love to read in bed with a lamp right beside me so I can just fall asleep and not have to get up to turn off the light.  I also LOVE to read outside on a blanket.

Do you prefer series books or stand alones?
I like either.  Lately I've only been able to have the patience to read stand-alones. 

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
How do you organize your books?(by genre, title, author’s last name, etc)
By size!


I would LOVE to read your answers!

Update

You've probably noticed that I haven't been blogging lately. I feel bad about that and I hope I can get back into it. We've been a bit stressed over the past few months. This post is going to get a bit personal and will probably be long with no pictures. I'm mostly writing it for ourselves so please don't feel like you have to read it.

Yeah, it's very personal. And a lot of it is going to sound like a repeat. And be depressing. But it has a good ending.

On January 29th of this year, Jonesy got laid off from his job at Utah Opera. Their reason was because he "wasn't a good fit."

Sound familiar?

Because he was laid off and not fired, we were able to get onto unemployment and have some income. At the end of February, Jonesy got offered a job that was very different from theatre. He would be drafting for a prefab metal building company. The job seemed interesting enough and since Jonesy was starting to wonder about whether or not he should get out of theatre, he took it. 9 days later, they fired him. You see, Jonesy has a condition I'm sure you've heard of. It's called Adult ADHD.

It's not just for kids anymore!

He had just been diagnosed a couple weeks before he started the drafting job and was in the process of figuring out his medication. His ADHD causes him to have some nervous ticks when not under medication. Talking to himself, swearing, (No it's not toureetes) chewing on his tongue, (yeah, wierd, huh?)questionable and sometimes offencive social behavior (off-colored jokes, etc), and tapping his foot are just a few of them. It was these things that were cited as the reason for firing him from the drafting job. The problem here is that he had told them about his ADHD and how it caused these things and how he was in the process of figuring out the right medications to get them under control. But they didn't really have the patience to deal with or try to understand his problems so they fired him. This caused all sorts of horrible things. The worst being that our unemployment was denied (you can't receive unemployment benefits if you are unemployed because of being fired) which means no more income. Anyway, we are in the process of both appealing the denial of unemployment and filing a claim against the drafting company for discrimination which is all going to take a very, very long time.

Yes, this means you were all right all along. I really AM crazy.

Meanwhile, Jonesy is spending hours every day trying to find work (still no luck). My parents have been gracious enough to let us stay with them until we can get our feet back under us. We've got our furniture in my sister's garage and all our boxes in my parents' attic. The kids are loving it (they get to play with their cousins all day now). Jonesy is considering going back to school. He's also on a waiting list to start an electrician's apprenticeship program. He's also putting in dozens of applications every week at every place you could imagine. The good news is that Jonesy's finally gotten a diagnosis for whats going on upstairs

They also diagnosed me with Bipolar II on top of the ADHD. Back in the day the would have just called me "That weirdo that lives in the woods."

and is on a good cocktail of medication and it seems to be helping him a lot.

While this year so far has been nothing but frustration, stress and an overwhelming sense of fear and uncertainty of the future, I am still holding on to that little sliver of hope (which actually started out as a huge amount of hope but has slowly, with each new twist, been whittled down to a sliver). We do have so much to be thankful for, even now. We have each other. We have three exceptional children (at least, we think so). We have family close by who are willing and able to help us out. We're not on the streets or in shelters. We're able to feed our children and clothe them. All of our basic necessities are within reach. Even though it's hard to deal with Jonesy's mental illness, we can be thankful that it's not terminal. It's something that CAN be dealt with. Right now in life, we are very uncomfortable but I know (or at least, hope) that in a few years we'll be looking back and smiling (I don't think we'll ever laugh about this).

Hey, I'm crazy, I can laugh about ANYTHING.

Anyway, so that's why I haven't been blogging lately. I haven't felt comfortable telling of all our burdens and I didn't feel like putting on a false face and acting like all has been fine and dandy. So now that you all know that all is not fine, I can continue blogging about our every day lives and not feel like I'm being deceitful or leaving stuff out

I just want you all to know how much I love my wife. All this stuff we are going through, the only ONLY reason that I haven't completely fallen apart has been because of Havilah. Every time I have said "Nope, I'm done, not going to do it any more" she grabs me by the ear, hauls me back to my feet, and makes me keep trying. For some unfathomable reason, she loves me and isn't going to let me give up. She plans on sticking this out no matter what.

So if anyone is crazy here, it's HER.

It's All in a Name

I'm sure I've probably posted before on this topic, but since I don't remember I'm doing it again! My friend is having a baby soon and she posted on her blog a bunch of ideas for baby names (since they are still undecided, they were hoping for some input). This got me to thinking about my children and their names. For us, naming our babies was pretty important business (as, I'm sure it is for every parent). We wanted to give our children names that meant something important. Names that they could be proud of. It was a big ordeal with each child and we were happy and relieved each time we decided on something. That's why I find it funny that I have never really talked to them about the meaning of their names. Ronan is too young to care (Probably Gareth too) but Ruth would probably LOVE to hear about it.

Anyway.. I thought I should probably write it all down for posterity's sake (and your enjoyment). So here it is: The stories behind our children's names:

Ruth Ellen: We argued endlessly for months before we were able to agree on a name. The funny part is that the name 'Ruth' never came up in our arguments. We were driving from Logan up to Washington listening to an audio book. One of the characters names was Ruth. After the book was over we started talking about names again. Jones said "How about Ruth?" I said "Okay, Ruth Ellen." Jones said "Okay." And that was it. If only we knew it would be so easy we would have suggested Ruth from the beginning.

We loved the name Ruth because: (1) It means 'Friend' and (2) We were able to name her after Jonesy's Aunt Ruth. I love that Ruth has grown in to her name so perfectly. Anyone who knows her would agree that 'friend' is a perfect meaning for her name. She is a very friendly kid. She is a friend to all. Whenever she sees a kid who is sad she runs over to them and tries to cheer them up. She's always putting her arm around others. I don't know where she gets it.

Her Middle name 'Ellen' comes from my Great-Great Grandmother, Susan Ellen Johnson (daughter of Joel Hills Johnson--writer of the hymn High on a Mountain Top). I've always loved hearing the stories from Susan Ellen's life and we were proud to name our daughter after her.

Gareth Blaine: We had decided on Gareth's name before we had even decided to be married.  While we were dating, we were hanging out with my roommate and we were having a conversation about what we wanted to name our future kids.  Jonesy said he liked the name Gareth and I quickly agreed.  Not because I was trying to impress, but because I had always loved the name (I try to never mention that it was the name of a boy in high school that I had a crush on...purley coincidince, I promise!).  Gareth is taken from a character in a book series by David Eddings called The Belgariad. Gareth was also a nephew of King Arthur and one of the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend.  The name Gareth means Gentle.  Gareth lives up to his name perfectly.  Anyone who knows him knows how sweet and gentle he is.  (except when he's throwing one of those awesome three-year-old tantrums...that is anything BUT gentle).

Blaine (his middle name) comes from a long line of first-born Jones boys.  It started with Gillespie Blaine Jones who begat Howard Blaine Jones who begat Ronald Blaine Jones who begat Michael Blaine Jones who begat Gareth Blaine Jones.  Not to put any pressure on the kid, but he better have a son!

Ronan Christopher: Coming up with Ronan's name was a bit difficult since we didn't find out whether he was a boy or a girl until he was born.  We had to spend 9 months arguing endlessly about boy names AND girl names.  (when was actually kind of fun).  The girl name was decided upon very early on in the pregnancy.  He would have been Lizabeth Nyna if he had been born a girl.  The boy name we argued about clear up until the moment he was born. 

There is a certain character in a certain scifi television show that we love who's name is Ronon Dex.  He's an awesome/studly character.  Jones thought it would be fun to name our son Ronan.  I thought the name is cool but I had it filed away in the fantasy hero category (next to Hercules, Tarzan, Aragorn, Conan, He-Man, etc.) and didn't think it would fit for a real person.  Jonesy said if I could come up with something better then we'd go with it.  Long story short, I didn't come up with anything better (except Zebulon.....but that wasn't a REAL suggestion).  After he was born, we then found ourselves unprepared and didn't have the spelling figured out.  As we filled out the form for the birth certificate, we had to write down all the different spellings and argue about which was best.  Ronon, Ronin, and Ronan were our choices.  We picked the best one.

We chose the middle name early on.  In fact, we picked the middle name and said whatever the first name is, it has to go with this middle name.  If our friend Chris didn't have such a common name (which we really didn't want to put with our common last name), it would have been Ronan's first name.  But we pride ourselves in unique-ish first names so had to put Christopher as a middle name.  Chris and his wife Anali have been an anchor in Joney's life and continue to be the best friends anyone could ask for.  We want Ronan to aspire to be a faithful friend like Chris is and as awesome and studly as Ronon is.  (Chris, Jonesy says that you shouldn't worry... you're awesome and studly too).

Anway.  If you made it through all that, you deserve a gold star!  I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me! :D

6 word memoirs

I heard about this book on NPR once a while ago and was very interested in reading it. It's called "Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Wemoirs by Famous Writers and Obscure." (that's a LONG title...). Ernest Hemingway once proved that an entire story can be told by using only 6 words by writing "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."

I really enjoyed reading this book. Some of the memoirs are a bit dirty (and hilarious) while others are serious. Some are sad, others happy. Either way, they were interesting. It got me into thinking about what my 6-word memoir would be. After months of thinking I think I've come up with it. Ready?

Stayed up way too late. Again.

So after I came up with mine. I was so excited to get Jonesy working on coming up with his. He was not happy about this adventure. He did not want to participate. So, to spite me, he came up with a stupid one. Sadly enough, it fits him perfectly. (warning! It's a little dirty.....highlight to read...but only if you want to be highly offended) here's Jonesy's:

She lets me touch her boobies.


So, what's yours???