Oh Nuts

  A Very Short History of the Israel–Palestine Conflict  by   Ilan Pappé Book 71 of 100 Rated: 4 stars Dates Read: June 1-3, 2025 "We Should be careful to differentiate Christian Zionism from Jewish Zionism." - Ilan Pappe For being such a short book, there is a lot of information packed into it. Two words that stood out to me while reading are "Ethnic Cleansing." They are words that are repeated thought the book because it is part of what happened between Israel and Palestine. Especially since history likes to repeat itself.

  An Indigenous' Peoples History Of The United States   by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Book 13 of 52 Rated: 4 stars Dates Read: January 25th thru 30, 2025 "They did not settle a virgin land. They invaded and displaced a resident population. This is so simple a fact that it seems self-evident." - Francis Jennings, historian It's been a few years since I last opened a history book for school, from what I remember of them, I feel like they don't tell the full story of how the "Europeans created the 'Doctrine of Discovery' to justify their takeover of any territory they "discovered" regardless of whose home it was. From an Indigenous perspective, European claims to Indigenous lands were not legitimate."  After reading through this book and learning more information, the history that I remember learning now feels a bit sanitized and white washed in the way that it is presented.  Part of what I learned in this books was the fact that the word, ...

In no particular order, here are the books that I finished for the month of December and the year. Rated: 4 stars Dates Read: December 1-13 2024 While it took me a while to start reading and get into the book, I had heard about the series and the author in November of last year on Tiktok. Once I started reading and got into the book, I did enjoy it and found the characters to be very lovable, though sometimes annoying. When it comes to reading fantasy books, it is kind of a hit and miss for me as far whether or not I will enjoy the book or not. But this is one of the books that I did enjoy and I liked the cozy aspect of it as well. Rated: 4.75 Dates Read: December 6-11 2024 "When a plague isn't all that kills..." While it has been a while since I read a book that is considered teen fiction, I did enjoy reading "The Scourge." It was entertaining and I enjoyed seeing the friendship of Weevil and Ani change and grow. What happens in the book with the scourge can al...

  Rated: 5 Stars I had heard of code talkers before but didn't really know much about them until I read this book. It was very insightful and informative but what was happening on the Pacific front during World War 2. While reading I also enjoyed learning more about the Navajo Nation since I didn't know much beforehand. Rated: 1 Star While I appreciate the setting and struggles that the characters are going through for the time period, it felt a little flat and slow for me. I also felt bored while reading it. Rated: 5 stars It was eye opening to learn more about what it is like to live in North Korea. Especially since it is different that what we learn in school and through social media and the news. Rated: 5 Stars Having not read anything by Kristin Hannah before, this was a good starting point for me. While I don't really get emotional while reading, I can understand why people are saying to have a box on tissues on hand because it is an emotional rollercoaster. The endin...

  Have you ever been told not to read a certain book because it might influence your thinking? Or have you been discouraged from reading a particular author because of their controversial ideas? If so, then you may have encountered a common fear that many people have: the fear of thinking. Photo by Laura Kapfer on Unsplash In reality, books should be celebrated for their ability to challenge our beliefs and broaden our perspectives. As the famous quote goes, "If you're afraid that books might change someone's thinking, you're not afraid of books. You're afraid of thinking." The truth is that reading books that challenge our existing beliefs is crucial for personal growth and intellectual development. Exposing ourselves to different ideas and perspectives makes us more open-minded and capable of critical thinking. We learn to question our assumptions and opinions and become more empathetic towards others who may hold different views. Of course, it can be uncom...

As of the beginning of last week, I am now participating in Camp NaNoWriMo next month. Why? Because I can and I have an idea that I want to try out. And because every book needs a cover that attracts attention I decided to go into Canva the other night and play around with some pictures and title ideas that I have for the novel that I plan on writing. If you haven't heard me talk about Camp NaNo before, I will briefly explain what it is. It is like the regular NaNoWriMo that happens during the month of November. But with Camp NaNo, more often then not, it happens during the months of April and July. With the new website that NaNo released you can join in different groups, instead of staying in one 'cabin.' I find that having smaller groups like this makes it easier to get to know some of your fellow writers a little bit better.  Anyhow, here are some covers that I made to go with the story idea that I have and am planning on doing for Camp NaNo next month. Since I haven...

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  When it comes to books and reading I don't normally make a list of what I am reading. Typically what I do is when I am at the library I look through the new books shelves and the 'themed' shelves that my library does. If I find books that sound interesting and like something that I would read I will pick them up and bring them with me until I am ready to leave. Other times I will look up book suggestions from friends or that other people suggest to me and get them.  Taken by me But this year I am starting out with a shortlist of books that I plan on working my way through. And the books are " The Hobbit " and " The Lord of the Rings " trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. Once I am finished reading those books I am currently planning on reading the book "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audry Niffenegger. It has been on my Want to Read list on Goodreads since last year when I got a paperback copy of the bo...

It's ok if you fall apart sometimes. Tacos fall apart and we still love them. Which is true because tacos are delicious and fall apart a lot.   Photo by  Krisztian Tabori  on  Unsplash In today's world, everyone is often led to believe that they have to be perfect. And depending on what they are focusing on, their focus on perfection will change. For some people, they are focusing on having the perfect body. While other people focus on having the perfect house. But we don't need to worry about being perfect. Another thing that people tend to focus on is making their problems disappear. And these problems stick around and are always with us. But there are things that we can do to change the problems that we have. Of course, how everyone goes about changing them depends on the person because we are all different and no one is the same. So what works for one person might not work for someone else. While it is an entirely different topic altogether the ...

This may seem like a strange fairy tale to have as a favorite, but one of my favorite fairy tales is called "The Robber Bridegroom." I first learned of this particular fairy tale, along with many others, in the book "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales," which I had purchased at Barnes and Noble several years ago. Since you may be wondering why this is one of my favorite fairy tales let me tell you that I don't really know why it is a favorite either, especially since it is a rather morbid story. Photo by  Olivier Guillard  on  Unsplash When you first look at the title of the tale, it doesn't look like it will be too much of a dark and depressing fairy tale. But once you actually read it, then it becomes a bit morbid. What I mean by that is that the bridegroom and his gang, spoiler alert, are cannibals. That is why I still don't understand how I consider it to be a favorite fairy tale of mine, but whatever. So the bridegroom and his gang are cannibal...

As of right now, we are three weeks into the new year and in that time I have ended one job and started another. The nice think about ending and starting two jobs is that I had a week in between ending my job at Kohl's and then starting my new job and during the in-between week I just had the nanny job that I do. Of course, I had to get sick with the stomach flu in between jobs which wasn't that fun, especially since I got the rest of the family sick. Enough about being sick and work and on to other more pleasant sounding topics of conversation. Washington D.C., May 12, 2018 For Christmas, I received a book called Writing Your Novel From Start To Finish: A Guidebook For the Journey by Joseph Bates. And I started reading it the other night and in the second chapter there were two sentences that jumped out at me. While the author is specifically talking about character development I believe that the two sentences still apply to real life as well as the page. "Our h...

I don't know if I ever shared the first cover I had made for the novel I will be attempting to write next month, but in the even that I did I have since changed the name of my work in progress. The name I had originally picked was Shadows of the Night, but as my plot has continued to change the name didn't really seem to fit anymore. Then the other day I was driving home from somewhere and I was listening to music and the song Roundtable Rival by Lindsey Stirling started playing. As the song was playing I felt like it fit more with the idea that I have for my novel. I have probably shared this already but in case you haven't heard it yet, my novel idea is a loose retelling of the story/legend of King Arthur and the knights of the roundtable. So that is how the name for my novel changed from being named after one song to being named after a different one.

Back in November, during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) ,  I wrote a post on something called word crawls and I explained what those were. I also shared a word crawl that I attempted based on the book "Anne of Green Gables." Well, this year I tried my hand at writing another word crawl, this time using the book "Pride and Prejudice." Photo by  Aaron Burden  on  Unsplash Chapter 1: Write 1,000 words as Mrs. Bennet tells Mr. Bennet that Netherfield Park is let at last to Mr. Bingley. Chapter 2: Sprint for 4 mins as Mr. Bennet teases Mrs. Bennet and his daughters about not visiting Mr. Bingley when he did. Chapter 3: Roll a die and multiply the number by 10 and write that many words as everyone dances at the assembly. Chapter 4: Do a fifty-headed hydra as Elizabeth and Jane talk about Mr. Bingley. Chapter 5: Take the last digit of your word count and multiply it by 100 and write that as the Miss Bennet’s’ and the Lucas’ discus...

Just from going to the library on a regular basis I have saved $4,279.26. Living right across the street from the local library helps with that because in the two years since we have lived by the library I have gone there more than when we lived several minutes away and didn't go as often. Anyhow, I didn't come to bore you all with talking about books and what I've read recently. This is more of a random talk about what's been going on in my life sort of post. Originally I was going to write this post last week but the words weren't wanting to come out the way that I wanted them too, so I am trying again. And since I haven't written a general, sometimes rambling, post on what has been happening lately I thought that I would include it all in one post. Last week was finals week and it was also the last week of my second to last semester of college, which feels like I have been doing forever. This semester I ended up taking four classes instead of three lik...

The library, or your own house, is always a good place to find books for this week's challenge. Even though my family owns a lot of books I went across the street to the local library instead.

Over the past month I have slowly been making my way through a biography entitled "Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch" by Sally Bedell Smith. I came across this book back in January while I was wandering around a small bookstore called "Books a Million," the acronym is BAM which I think is cute. Since I was just looking and not planning on buying anything I wrote down the title and the authors name in the memo app on my phone and placed a hold on the book at the library. Speaking of libraries, when I checked out this book, when it came in, I noticed on the receipt that it told me how much money I had saved in the past year by checking books out at the library. Since I had checked out another book besides this book it said that I saved $70.00 just by checking the two books out. Over the past year I saved a total of $784.68, just by using the library instead of buying them. One of my favorite stories, that I read in the book, is about when the quee...

For several weeks I had been seeing a sponsored movie trailer on Instagram for a movie called "Before I Fall." After seeing it multiple times I decided to look it up. When I pulled it up I learned that the movie is based on a novel of the same name by Lauren Oliver. Since it sounded interesting I got the book from the library. Even though the label on the side of the book claimed that it was a teen novel, I personally didn't think it qualified as such. While I thought that the idea for the book, which is "What would you do if you had to relive one day of your life over again?" was very interesting I didn't agree with some of the things that were brought up in it. Because of that I wouldn't let any of my younger siblings read it until they were 20 or older. Found on Google Another book that I just finished reading is "The Whole Town's Talking" by Fannie Flagg. It was a very interesting book to read because the chapters were, on av...

In 2011 I started working on a story idea that I had that was loosely based on the story of "The Frog Prince" and set in the West during the 1800's. While I liked the idea of having a retelling of a not very popular fairy tale it didn't really take off. Then in 2012 I went to a five day writing course that was given by one of my favorite authors. My idea was refined a bit more and placed in Medieval times and based on the story of St. George and the Dragon. Currently my story idea is a combination of King Arthur and St. George and the Dragon. With a little bit of the story of Moses possibly thrown in as well. Besides the ideas for my story changing all of the time, the name of my main girl character keeps changing as well. While I don't remember what her name was from 2011 - 2013, I do remember all of the names after that. For a while, in 2014, my main girl character's name was Xiomara, because I thought it was really pretty. But after a couple months i...

For me the answer to this question is the easiest thing to say and explain why I would do it as a date with someone. (Just in case anyone was wondering, I am not dating at the moment.) My ideal date, whether it is the first, fifth, or twenty-fifth date, would be to go to a library or a bookstore and we would each pick out one of our favorite books. Once we had the books we would go to a cafe/coffee shop and take turns reading out of the books we picked out. Reading your favorite book over a cup of hot chocolate/tea/coffee, to me, seems more romantic than going to the movies or out for a fancy dinner. While there is nothing wrong with going to the movies or out for a fancy dinner, I enjoy read a good book more. Reading a good book in front of a fire with a big blanket and a mug of hot chocolate/tea/coffee would be a date that I woukd love to go on if going to a cafe doesn't work out.

After reading the title of this post you are wondering what those all have in common besides being books. Well every month my library has a row of shelves in the Adult section where they highlight a couple different types of books that they have. The themes for the month of April are: April in Paris Comic books Poetry  First Book in a Series So far the only theme section that I have found any interesting books in was "April in Paris." I am not a huge comic book or poetry fan so those themes didn't sound interesting. None of the books in the  "First Book in a Series" didn't jump out and grab my attention either. I just finished reading "One Evening in Paris." At first I felt like it moved a little slow, but then it picked up and didn't take me long to finish it once I got into it more. Because the two books that I had just read previously were set in the 1970's, I had it in my head that "One Evening in Paris" wa...

I am officially on spring break at the moment. Well it technically started last week on Thursday when my Psychology class ended for the day. I was supposed to have some homework to do this week for two of my classes, but that is all finished and turned in online, so the only thing that I have to worry about that is school related is studying for a Psychology test that I have next week, and signing up for a class that I have to take over the summer. Even though it's actually not until Thursday, my family and I celebrated St. Patrick's Day with my dad's side of the family on Sunday. One of the things that I always look forward too when we celebrate this feast day is the amazing Irish Soda Bread that my grandma makes every year. I hate to brag, but it is the best bread ever. A few weeks ago, while studying at the library, I found a book series that involved knitting called The Beach Street  series. While the series was good, it wasn't anything spectacular and what I w...