Karli’s Comments (group member since Feb 23, 2010)

Karli’s comments from the Busy as a Bee Books group.

The weekend brought my daughter's birthday, a visit from my sister, a new lifestyle opportunity, and now I'm on the brink of furlough as the government will likely go into partial shut-down at 12 am, Saturday April 9 and I will be out of a paycheck as I am "non-essential" and so, we wait.

We finished our basement 2 summers ago - and that was hands down the longest 2 months of my marriage. My co-worker told me that short of a long-term affair, a house re-model is the ultimate test of a marriage, and I understood! BUT - totally worth it, and I hope your project will be too. :)

Ashley, that sounds sooooooooo much like something my Kasia would say! :)

I agree 1000% with Stephanie on Still Alice.

I always cry the last 2 pages of To Kill a Mockingbird as Boo's perspective of the children is written. Tuesdays with Morrie was so bad that Mike was worried about me. Eternal on the Water was another recent one that took lots of tissues.

Garlan wrote: "I just finished which was very good. I highly recommend this one if you enjoyed (similar ..."

was a wonderful story. Hope you enjoy it.

@Stephanie - I LOVED !!!!! I too read it in one day and bawled. But such a good book.

Tricia wrote: "This weekend I am going to start . I have not read anything by Margaret Atwood and was told this is a good one to start with ..."

That is a great one to start with...I'm trying to remember the other one I read that I loved by Atwood...must dig.

Thanks guys, for the well wishes. Apparently the child was caught twice today being mean to Kasia by her Kindergarten teacher, so there is some progress there.

And - I've started a new thread in Random Discussions, please give me input. I'm going to my first meeting tonight for my city's Library Revitalization project - the city is building a new library, and I get to have some input, and I'd really love the Bees help me bring a lot to the table!

Vicki wrote: "Stephanie I also downloaded The Apothecary's Daughter for the free Fridays and was wondering how it was. What do you think?"

IMO -
It was free for Kindle awhile back. I thought is was mediocre to bad. It had one interesting twist to it, but I was pretty disappointed in that one over all.

My daughter's birthday is April 2nd as well! I was in labor the day you celebrated your daughter's 1st birthday. :)

Good for you, Amy. It sounds like through the chaos you've figured out what's going to make you happy long-term, which is the important thing. I hpe you get out east soon!

My daughter turns 6 on Saturday - seems to be birthday season!

@Tam - hey cuz! :) I think my mother got me the series a year or two after you devoured it. I still remember sitting in your room in Jamestown when you told me Beth dies in Little Women - Mom had only gotten me the first half of the book. That was traumatic!

Welcome back! My family is going to Phoenix in May - no baseball for us though - they aren't playing the whole time we're there, which my husband is bummed about.

Well, Gabe stayed home on Monday with my in-laws, Mike stayed home with Kasia on Tuesday because she had a temperature, then on Wednesday the school called at 2:30 (3:00 is dismissal) to say she was in the office with a tummy ache and a low temp. I went to get her and then got Gabe too since it was the end of the day and she was FINE> like so fine I was angry with her for calling me. Thursday morning, tummy ache again. She wants to stay home. I wa sooooooo frustrated...and then I realized that she'd been complaining about a little girl in her class being mean to her a lot and finally asked her, "Kasia, does your tummy hurt because you're worried about Jayden being mean?" And she burst in to tears and said she just didn't know what to do. UGH. This child is doing the classic "na-na-na" "You're dumb" "So what?" stuff to Kasia and she has no idea how to deal with it. So, I told her that she has to go to school, but she does not have to play with Jayden, and to tell her she's not being nice and walk away when she says mean things. Then I called the daycare, because this child also goes to our after-school care, and told the director what was going on and asked that Kasia be kept with a different group of kids. The director was very good, she and Kasia sat down and had a chat, and she also told me that this child is NOT nice, and it is not Kasia making up stories or dramatizing, and that they will keep a close eye on the situation. Her teacher also emailed me and thanked me for letting her know about the situation and said she'd monitor it. Of course that classroom has way too many kids in it right now, so I'm not expecting much from the teacher - she's got so many students to worry about already.

And, my desktop computer DID crash on Monday. I was able to use a free OS to get it to boot one more time and tried to rescue some files, but when I went to reload them today, they are corrupt. :( We bought a new hard drive for our computer today and installed it, and it's working beautifully now. However, the thing that I lost is my iTunes library. Soooooooo - I found some software that lets me reverse rip my songs from my iPod to the computer, but it doesn't seem to be pulling them all back, which is troublesome. about 75% of my library are from my own CDs - so that's not a huge deal, I can re-rip them. But I really, really don't want to lose the 200 songs I've purchased over the past few years either. So! That's all the fun I'm having this weekend!

I finished Mudbound last night, and ended up giving it 3 stars. It was told from multiple points of view, and was an interesting read, but just didn't move me that much. It was fine, but nothing I'll re-read or rush to recommend.

I then moved on to But Inside I'm Screaming which I had picked up several months ago at a used book sale. I grabbed it basically because the title was great. (particularily for a bureaucrat who spends my days smiling nicely at people I'd love dearly to scream at sometimes!) So, I'm about halfway through because the writing is about as dense as cotton candy and the subject matter is as compelling as a car crash (reporter is institutionalized after suicide attempt - the story follows her mental illness and dabbles in the stories of the people who are institutionalized with her.) I'm reading the book, thinking it's about a 2. I'll finish it because it'll hardly take any effort, but it's not enjoyable or very worthwhile.

I'm in the antithesis of a reading slump right now and am plowing through books at a rather rapid rate. It's fun - I should pick War & Peace back up while I'm all ambitious.

@Jason -

I've read the John Corey books...I've read enough of your reviews that I'll have to check out the Gabriel Allon series. However, it's a little odd to read a book where the hero (who likely drinks and has sex) has my son's name...

I've been reading the Prey series since I was in high school - and read them in pretty random order until recent years, when I read them all as soon as they come out. LOVE that series.

Phooey - I have Kindle, otherwise I'd help you out. Ask Stephanie! She's the Nook lady.

(although I have a sneaking suspicion I'll end up with a Nook eventually too...our library will likely end up with eBooks soon, and I have to have the reader that works!)

@Jason - good to see you keeping up with Lucas. :)

I finished tonight and I'm chewing on it still. It feels like a mix of so many books that I've read that I'm not quite sure how I feel. It's 4 stars for sure...maybe 5. But I'm not overwhelmed by it somehow. I went into this book expecting to have the same sort of visceral reactions that and inspired, and I really didn't. However, if I was discussing it with someone, there is certainly a good deal available to talk about.

This is the story of a woman kidnapped from her village in Africa at the age of 11 and the tale spans her lifetime, multiple trips across the ocean and really, different lives for Aminata. While it's not a sweet book, and there are the inescapable atrocities of suffering, rape and trauma that is a part of any book that deals with the era of slavery in America, however, it's as upbeat and happy as it possibly can be. I was amazed at the resilience of the character penned by Lawrence Hill. I have yet to decide if I think that I feel that this is a realistic story. It's rather idealized, I think. I felt somehow that The Kitchen House brought a more realistic view. But - maybe that's because it was more painful than this story? I don't know. I'd love to hear from others who have read this one and see what you guys think.

@Tasha - how are you liking it? I see you're over half done. :)

And now Kasia is running a temp, and Gabe still has his (so, day 3 at least for his fever). My mom is on standby, my in-laws have volunteered to hang out with sick kids and my husband said he's willing to take a sick day with them as well. Which is great, because I'm almost out of sick leave! I'm really, really tired of sick!