Arrival in Minnesota

In case you missed the posts on Twitter, Facebook, and didn't get a phone call, we arrived safely in Minnesota. This was our most exhausting road trip, with maybe the exception of my first road trip to Tennessee.

I had to drive a 16' moving van while towing a car, this caused a bit of stress for me as I'm not use to it. Though the stress reduced within the first few hundred miles, except in heavy traffic. The cab of the truck was made for three people, and we added a dog to the mix. It was a very cuddly 1200 miles, luckily the air conditioner worked very well.

The exhaustion began before we even got into the car, two intense days of packing and loading boxes into the truck in debilitating heat. The trip was longer than usual because we couldn't go faster than 55 miles per hour, so a  2 day trip became a three day trip. When we arrived in Minnesota, they were experiencing record heat, 101F. We had to unload the truck that night, it was due to be turned in the next day. The day after we arrived, the temperatures dropped into the 50s. It was such a nice change.

We are focusing on resting for the first few days, but working on putting things away at the same time. I've returned to my job hunting efforts, and The Girl and I have stopped by her school to get her enrollment paperwork. I've had a driving tour of the town, and discovered a local meat market. I can't wait to try their meats, it'll be tough for them to please native Texans with their quality of meat.

There is a weekly craft show/farmer's market on Fridays, at least during the summers. I've seen four separate parks in this town alone. I look forward to exploring the area and seeing what else it has to offer. I also can't wait to see our friends up here.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

My husband has been encouraging me to read this book for about a year, he read it and thought it was great. After much delay, I have finally caved under the pressure. (Actually, I just finally felt in the mood for it.) I chose to read it via audio book in order to allow for packing, driving, and cleaning while I read. I'm really looking forward to a few days of lounging with a good book at some point in the near future.

The Time Traveler's Wife is the story of Henry, a reluctant time traveler, and Claire, his eventual wife and the love of his life. It is the story of their relationship and their love, but it's not a romance novel. It's a dramatic story, with a bit of science fiction thrown in through the element of time travel. Henry begins time traveling at the age of five, he has no control over when or where he goes, he can not prevent himself from going. When he arrives, it is without any clothes, and he acquires a rather unique skill set to survive these unexpected jaunts in time and space.

The audio recording was the BBC edition, read in two points of view, Henry's and Claire's. Both readers were excellent, and really helped bring the characters to life. William Hope gives life to Henry, while Laurel Lefkow voices Claire.

Time traveling is not always a pleasant experience for Henry, he is often returned to pivotal moments in his own life and these are not always pleasant. The time traveling complicates his life as he will suddenly vanish and reappear, the passage of time is not always equal on both sides of the travel either. He may be in the past for a day and gone from the present for 30 minutes, or in the past for 30 minutes and gone from the present for a couple of days. The erratic nature of the time travel causes worry and strain in Henry and Claire's relationship, as well as their desire for a normal life.  Their feelings for each other are strong, but often convoluted, as Henry's first meeting with Claire is not Claire's first meeting with Henry.

Claire has known Henry since she was a child, but Henry doesn't meet Claire until they are both in their 20s. Henry is disturbed by how well Claire seems to know him, while she is a stranger to him. Henry tries to keep his time traveling a secret, as most people would simply think him insane.

Audrey Niffenegger's writing is wonderful. Henry and Claire have distinctive voices and perspectives. I think the passage that truly one me over was her writing as 6 year old Claire. She captured the speech patterns of a young child perfectly, including the stops and starts and the exuberance that almost renders them incomprehensible to adults. The book is very emotional, I was in tears in several places, sometimes from sadness, sometimes from joy.

If you've seen the movie and didn't like it, ignore that and read the book. The movie, so I've been told, falls extremely short of the emotion and depth of the book.

12th Birthday Party

This weekend we held our daughter's 12th birthday party on Saturday, this was her final Texas party. We were a bit nervous, because in past years the turn out has been very small. This was partially due to the fact that so many of her classmates were Hispanic, and her parties always fell on the same weekend as the Cinco de Mayo celebrations. The move to junior high alleviated much of this issue with the end of the Dual-Language program. Luckily, though not everyone showed up, we had plenty of people come. The original plan was the zoo, but I realized that I had scheduled in on Mother's Day. Oops! So the date was changed and the venue altered. Who doesn't love a pool party?

 The Girl requested a Gir cake, this is a character from an older cartoon called Invader Zim. It's a show with a lot of dark comedy, created by Jhonen Vasquez (@JhonenV). The merchandise has become very popular with the pre-teen and teen set recently, though sadly many have never seen an episode or even heard of the show. Gir is Zim's defective robot sidekick, and most people's favorite character from the series. To the left is the model I used for the cake.

Creating this cake was an experiment for me. I made two cakes, and carved on of them to make the character. This was very nerve racking, as I had never done it before. I used store bought tubes for the black icing, because it's so hard to mix black and have it turn out to be really black. The Husband and The Girl both complemented me on the appearance of the cake. It was also a huge hit at the party.

The mini-hamburgers seasoned and grilled by The Husband were declared by several guests to be "the best hamburgers ever". Many chips were consumed, as well as two whole bowls of popcorn. All guests went home full, tired, and happy. I'm glad The Girl has made some good friends this year, and I hope that she can stay in touch with them after the move.

It's My Birthday!

I've been planning to do a birthday blog for weeks, now that the day is here, my mind is begin very uncooperative. I'm going to give it a go anyway, hoping that the act of writing will spur my mind to join in.

Today, I am 36 years old. I am not where I expected to be at 36. Is anyone really where they expected to be? I know that often when people say this, they are complaining, that's not the case here. I'm happy with my choices, even if they took me in a different direction than I originally intended.

I think back to the dreams I had as a teenager and wonder how I ever thought that those things would make me happy. Those ideas seem very strange to me now, almost as if they were thought of by another person. I guess that in a way it's true, I'm not the same person I was at 18.

I remember wanting to be a vet as a child, and a lawyer as a teenager. If I had the skills in math and science, I think I could have been happy now as a vet. I look back on my plans to be a lawyer, and to marry one, with utter dismay. I can't believe that I ever thought this was something that was a good idea or that I actually started out as a political science major. I'm just glad that my spouse helped me realize I would have been miserable in the field of law. I frequently border on cynical now, I'd be bitter and hard-boiled if I had become a lawyer.

I'm very glad I didn't go that route. I've always been a bit too serious for my own good, I definitely didn't need to marry someone with just as serious a mindset. I needed someone more relaxed than me, and prone to laughter. I needed someone that could make laugh in spite of myself (and my mood), someone that would challenge me to expand my experiences and take risks. I got just that in my husband.

Case in point, my family and I are about to uproot ourselves and head across the country. We did this once before when our daughter was very small, but it wasn't the giant leap it is now. When we did it the first time, neither of us had a full time job, I was fresh out of college, and our daughter was too young to have made real friends or to miss them.

Now, I have resigned from my stable teaching job and neither of us have employment in place in Minnesota. I realize that to most people this seems to be absolutely insane, especially in this recession economy. Sometimes it feels completely insane as well.Yet at the same time, I know that it's the right thing to do. We have felt the need to make a change for a while now, just never had sufficient funds or motivation to do it. We were in a rut, and unhappy about it, but felt like we had no other choice.

Then things all seemed to fall into place at the same time to push us into doing what we've desired for years, return to Minnesota. First, the district offers a 10% bonus to any teacher that quits in order to balance out the state funding cuts. We tossed the idea around halfheartedly at this point, in that day dreaming sort of way that people never follow through on. Second, over Spring Break a family member in Minnesota became ill. This made us realize that we are very much needed up North. We took a couple of days to really discuss the idea, and came to the conclusion that returning to Minnesota is not only what we want to do, but it is what we need to do. And who wouldn't want to return to such a picturesque place?

So now with 44 days left until we hit the road for Minnesota, I waver between elation and stress. I'm elated to be headed to a beautiful place full of friendly people, and terrified of leaving the stability of my job. Excitement about seeing distant friends, and fear of not getting one of the "hundreds" of jobs I'm applying for. Relief that I'm ahead of the packing game, and panic that I need to pack faster. Eagerness to get on the road, and terror at the likely gas prices. Excitement about the Girl's new school, and worry over her making new friends. Anticipation that it's almost time, and consternation that it's so far away. I admit that my nerves are a bit raw from all the conflicting emotions. But all I have to do is remember how relaxed I felt on visits to Minnesota, the physical feeling of weight being lifted from my shoulders as I crossed the state line, and once again I know that we are doing the right thing.

There are friends we will miss, and family too, but deep down I know that my family will be where we truly belong. That we are going to a place where we can all truly flourish.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Just finished the book a few minutes ago, I quite enjoyed it, though you might not be able to tell it by how long it took me to read it. So many things get in the way of reading time: work, cleaning, stitching, TV watching, and sleeping.

The Hunger Games is a young adult, dystopian novel set in the United States at an unknown future date. The protagonists of the story are Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, but Katniss is the narrator. They are from District 12, a poor district, in charge of mining coal. My guess is that District 12 is somewhere near modern day Tennessee and Kentucky, maybe this is unduly influenced by the fact that my husband's family are actually coal miners from that area.

The Capitol is the center of this future country of Panem. Every year, the 12 districts participate in a lottery in which a boy and girl "tribute" from each area are entered into a deadly set of games, The Hunger Games, that are mandatory viewing for the nation. The boys and girls range in age from 12 to 18, each year their name is added again to the lottery, so older children are more likely to get chosen. Children of poor families may enter their names extra times each year in order to acquire necessary supplies such as food. These games are a punishment to all the districts for the rebellion of District 13, which the Capitol obliterated.

When we meet Katniss, we quickly learn that she is ferociously independent and deeply resents the Capitol's interference in their lives. We also learn that she is smart enough to have learned at an early age to control her facial expressions and mouth to avoid causing her family problems. She has been taking care of her mom and sister, Prim, since her father's death in a mine explosion. She has partially done this, by having her name entered into the game lottery extra times.This year's lottery is more stressful for her because her sister is now a part of the lottery, though she isn't overly concerned as Prim has very little chance of having her name drawn.

As luck would have it (I apologize for the cliche), Prim's name is drawn. Katniss immediately jumps up to take her sister's place, this is very unusual in a world where people have resigned themselves to these awful games.

The games are further complicated when Peeta is chosen as the other "tribute". Peeta is the boy that gave her bread after her father's death, when she was on the verge of giving up. He was hit for burning the bread, which he did on purpose, in order to give the loaves to Katniss. She is conflicted because she feels she owes him her life and has never thanked him for his kindness.

Collins keeps a good pace in the book, and moves smoothly between different emotional levels. Her teen characters struck me as believable and true to the teen mindset. She provides some nice surprises and a couple of twists in the tale. I had a hard time writing this review, because all I really wanted to do was to start the next book in the series, Catching Fire.