2015 Reading Goals

So I'm not really one for reading lists and reading goals, because 2 years ago I insisted that I would read 1 new-to-me book every month and I came up one short but it was still a really good experience. However, I tend to re-read a lot or I don't read at all. It always (for me, at least) comes down to: "Will I knit, or will I read?" Also, this list is going up about 2 months late, since it took me a while (between reading, of course) to figure out which books I wanted to read this year once I finished racing through the Ranger's Apprentice series.

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Because money is on the tight side these days (rent, utilities, student loans, cat food, etc.) I'm buckling down and basically going to avail myself of my to-be-read shelf or the library. There are quite a few books on my to-be-read shelf. I also have Audible credits I should utilize. But I figured I should make a master list of all the books I plan to read this year. 

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My goal is to get at least 40 in: at least 12 of them have to be books I haven't read before and at least 4 of those 12 have to be classics I haven't read before. Additionally I want to read at least 5 non-fiction books this year: 1 essay collection, 3 religious/spiritual, and 1 that will probably be recommended by my favorite aunt at some point or another.

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These seem like reasonable goals, right?  Right. Maybe once a month or so I'll update you on what I read. Maybe not. We'll see.  Here we go...

KEY: * = re-read; italics = classic; bold = new/not read before

- Ranger's Apprentice:
       + The Ruins of Gorlan *
       + The Burning Bridge *
       + The Icebound Land *
       + The Battle for Skandia *
       + The Sorcerer of the North *
       + The Siege of Macindaw *
       + Erak's Ransom
       + The Kings of Clonmel
       + Halt's Peril
       + The Emperor of Nihon-Ja
       + The Lost Stories
       + The Royal Ranger
- Persuasion, Jane Austen
- Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
- Engleby
- Novel
- The Handmaid's Tale
-  The Sky Is Everywhere
- On the Road
- Tender is the Night
- 100 Years of Solitude
- The Secret of Lost Things
- The Orchid House
- The Crystal Cave *
- The Hollow Hills *
- The Last Enchantment *
- The Meaning of Night
- Anne of Green Gables *
- Madame Bovary
- Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
- The Goldfinch
- The Mass of the Early Christians 
- The Privilege of Being Catholic
- The Lamb's Supper
- Biblical Defense of Catholicism
- The House of Rumour
- The Club Dumas
- The Elegance of the Hedgehog 
- The Sparrow
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I know, can you believe I've never read that one???)
- The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy

This list is far from exhaustive, and of course subject to change. These are the books I would like to have read by the end of 2015. Some of them are Kindle books, some of them are tattered paperbacks, a couple of them are audiobooks, some are secondhand hardcovers, and a handful are new. 

Hopefully I'll be able to pull together a few posts to keep you abreast of my reading, and if I'm feeling really ambitious I might even start posting book reviews. 

Do you have reading goals for the year? Do you think mine are too ambitious? Let me know in comments or with a list of your own...

Happy Reading!

love,

Willow

52 Lists, Week 1

Happy New Year!!!!!!!


You may (or may not) recall that last year I attempted to participate in the 52 Lists Project. However, the person behind the project abandoned it after Week 20 - less than halfway through the year. So I, too, abandoned the project. But now I'm back for a new year and I've created my own lists to supplement the second half of the year. My goal is to post on Mondays, since there are exactly 52 Mondays in 2015. I could have done Fridays, but that's when we do Pinteresting so Mondays are the plan.

Week 1: List the Words that Touch Your Soul

Most of the words on this list are the same as they were last year, with a few additions. I love words in general, but here are some of my current favorites:

+thrill      + Gatsby      +agape     +whiskers      +sift      +beloved       +stars      +fantasy      +solemn

+castle      +oceans      +imagination     +wonderful       +blossom    +whisper      +susurrous

+petrichor       +infinity      +embroider       +delight    +subversive     +wishes      +sacred      +wifty

+watercolor      +dignity      +hypergraphia        +compassion      +elsewhere      +scripturient

+luscious       +darling         +fathom         +desire        +madness       +seduce     +quiet

+light      +constellation

There you have it, my 39 favorite words as of right this second. 

You can visit HERE to get a list of your own! Some people do their lists in notebooks, scrapbooks, Flikr photos, etc., but you do you!

What are some of your favorite words? Let me know in comments!

Happy 2015, lovelies....

Love,

Willow

For more fun with 52 Lists, click down on "52 Lists" in the little categories section at the bottom of the post, and go over to Moorea Seal's site to see more!

Check out Moorea Seal's entire project at her blog below:
http://www.moorea-seal.com/p/52-lists.html   

Out of the Darkness

Alright, folks, I've got some big news. I've been kind of secretive for the last year, but I've been looking for a cause. Yes, yes, I'm a Free Hugger, but that's not really a "cause" so much as it's a movement and I don't feel about getting into the discussion of those differences. What I'm saying is, I've found it, and I'm stunned at how perfect it is.

As someone who's been living with diagnosed depression for over 2 years now (not to mention living with it undiagnosed for almost 12 years) and gone through the hospitalization and medication and therapy and blah blah blah, I'm kind of shocked how long it took me to find this organization - especially when I've been directly & indirectly benefiting from their influence for the duration of my treatment.

May I introduce: Out of the Darkness: The Overnight. 18 miles through the streets of San Francisco in one night. We're walking for the people we love who struggle with depression, the ones we've lost to suicide, and every single soul that resists the temptation to give up every day. I cried when I found this, because it reminded me that I am not the only one who struggles and that there is an army of people out there who come together to offer each other support.

SO! I'm taking donations. It costs $1000 to participate as a walker (I even joined a team! Team Death is No Parenthesis - from the e.e. cummings poem) plus the registration fee and airfare to get up to San Francisco in the first place. That said, I've been using my position as the Free Hugs Girl to further my cause. I'm there every Sunday anyway, and I have a modest following already, so I might as well commandeer their assistance. Drumroll!

Day 1 in Claremont and the conclusion of my first week of fundraising has elicited a total of: $54.52!!! I've committed myself to $20 a week and all the change I collect to this project, so the total donations I've received from strangers comes to $30.98, which is still awesome! As soon as I register I'll have an online donor page, and I know some of you have already made pledges to my cause, but every little bit helps! This cause has become so important to me in the last couple of weeks... It's put on by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which is an organization that supports programs like the Trevor Project, clinics and early-diagnosis centers at universities across America, and various other programs that save lives every single day.

I'll be posting more next week, with an update on my fundraising status and all the ways I'm getting ready for this. I have 14 weeks until the walk, which is June 9-10. Until then, anyone have any fundraising ideas for me???

Confession

So I have a confession to make, and I'm not proud of it, but I really need to come clean (to all 3 people who read this ever). I folded today. Wait. Let me start from the beginning.

Yesterday I kept thinking about it. I'd concentrate on something and then this would take over my thoughts until I was consumed with it. So last night I set an alarm and this morning I woke up eager and excited and ready. I had breakfast and did some reading, waiting for the right time. But as the minutes ticked by, I could feel it starting. An hour later I woke up on the floor under my kitchen table.

You see, I had planned on going Free Hugging this afternoon in Claremont. Instead I got to spend most of the afternoon recovering from a full-blown panic attack complete with a blackout. I told myself I'd go at noon, which turned into 1pm. By 11:30 I was nauseated and when I stood up to make myself a cup of tea I was so dizzy I instantly had to sit back down. Around 12:20 I started having trouble breathing and couldn't stop shaking and then all of a sudden it was 1:05 and I was under the table with no recollection of having slid out of my chair and onto the floor.

I just re-read that and it makes it sound so much worse than it was. Not that it wasn't an awful experience, but I've had these episodes before. (The blackouts are still kind of scary, though.) I'm just upset - ashamed, really - that I let it take hold of me before I could even get out the door. And I wanted to Hug so badly this week but I let my fucking social anxieties get in the way. Again. Bloody fuck. Sorry. I just feel so weak and stupid about today being completely wasted because of a stupid panic attack that could've been avoided if I'd just forced myself to crawl out the door. Then again, I might have had a worse attack once I'd reached my destination and panic attacks in public are waaaaaaaaay worse than panic attacks in the safety of one's home.

The worst part is I feel like I'm continuing a pattern of self-sabotage. And.. God this is hard to say... It's almost as if part of me wants to be like this. I spend every day fighting back all my dark thoughts and at the end of the day fighting to go to sleep but somehow I can't help thinking that part of me wants to keep my D--------- because it's become such a defining part of who I am now. And then at the same time I'm screaming inside that I want all of this to go away so I can be normal again and go back to school and go on dates and not be constantly fighting all the goddamn time.

In other news, I calculated and have just enough money to buy groceries, put gas in my car and pay back some of the money I owe my mother, but my Uncle doesn't have a filter and eats constantly, I haven't slept properly in over a week because of my grandmother's fucking cat, I'm as lonely as ever and I received a final notice on a delinquent payment for one of my old student loans which I can't afford to pay right now. I'm exhausted from keeping up with housework and my job and my "resolutions" and my brother has applied for (and RECEIVED) a job transfer to be with his precious bitch and is taking his daughter with him. Did I mention this job transfer puts him over AN HOUR AWAY FROM HERE? No? Well consider it mentioned.

“It seemed unreasonable, unfair, that a woman so young and beautiful should be so exhausted. Of course, it was neither unreasonable nor unfair. Exhaustion pays no mind to age or beauty. Like rain and earthquakes and hail and floods." ~ Haruki Marukimi, Dance, Dance, Dance (1994)

This has just turned into a royal fuckup of a week, but really, complaining about it isn't going to make it better. I just don't know what will, though.

New Year, New You

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?

Fir ald lang syn, ma jo,
fir ald lang syn...
we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
fir ald lang syn..."

"Sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self-destruct."
- Sam Stevens

In no particular order:

• keep better track of my income and expenses, including balancing my checkbook regularly and saving my pennies
• write every day (“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” - T.S. Eliot)
• completely clean and organize my room by May (including all papers and crafts) [This is actually a huge undertaking, but I plan to chip away at it a little each day until it's done, dammit]
• finish (properly) 1 big writing project
• eat and take my meds/vitamins every day (I really need to work on eating)
• have a real-life adventure (not quite sure what this one means, but I wrote it down, so I must mean it)
• start Free Hugging again
• take better care of my car (and stop living out of it)
• get a full-time job
• do one thing each day for my own enjoyment, just for me
• fill a jar of happy thoughts
• exercise daily
• blog regularly
• write lots of book reviews
• be patient with my uncle and avoid homicide in his area
• keep track of the books I read (and reread)
• put daily effort into my appearance (i.e., put myself together in the morning)
• wear sunscreen
• get back to journaling
• spend time with Kenzie, teaching her how to be a kid
• devote a little more attention to the Kenzie blog
• start writing letters to the people I write letters to again
• try not to be so lonely all the time
• LIVE

So these are mostly things that normal people do anyway, and I don't really think of them as "New Year's Resolutions" so much as I think of them as things I've been needing to do and might as well use the new year as a good place to start myself in a new routine. Just saying. Because Resolutions are just promises we all make to ourselves after Christmas and forget before Valentine's day. I intend to hold myself accountable to...myself. Because I deserve these things. I deserve to write and play with my niece and do things that make me happy and to not be as lonely as I've been in the last 3 months. Don't I? I think I do, and tonight, my opinion matters.
Champagne and Big Bang Theory DVDs at Belinda's house with her boyfriend, Dana, and Courtney, then a slumber party with Court. That was my exciting New Year's Eve. But it's so much better than last New Year's Eve, sitting on the couch with my brother and a drink I didn't even finish. Courtney and I spent almost 2 hours sitting at my kitchen table talking about literature and books and poetry and things we loved. It's becoming like that, my kitchen table. I'll write more on that later, I think. She remembered to write to her husband before bed like she does every night, and then I remembered my own private tradition.
I pulled up youtube and played my favorite version of "Auld Lang Syne" and wrote in my journal for the first time in 14 months. My last entry was the 6 pages I spent writing out my first speech to tell my parents I was leaving LMU the first time. Of course, I didn't get more than 3 sentences into that speech, but it's in there, all the words I meant to say. I only gave myself time to scribble a few brief sentences, but I realized that I didn't do it last year and I felt awful. I don't feel a whole lot...better?...after having written those few, brief awkward lines, but I did it and I'll be doing more soon.

“Think back and replay your year; if it doesn’t bring you tears of either joy or sadness, consider it wasted."
~Ally McBeal

I'll try to remember to keep y'all updated on the status of my "resolutions" as time passes, and hopefully I'll have a nice little daily routine going by Valentine's Day.

Until then, ma jo's.....
"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."
~Jonathan Safran Foer
But not anymore.
~Willow

A New Year Resolution

When I say "New Year" I mean a new school year. Just so we're clear.

Basically, I have this really awesome Screenwriting professor who has a zillion brilliant adages on writing and what it means to be a writer. He's quite simply a genius. But the crux of what he says is that. as writers, we should feel miserable when we're not writing - true - and guilty the days we don't write - too true - and that we must write every day if we ever want to consider ourselves "writers" - infinite truth.

However, being a college student (again *groan*), I don't always have time to dedicate an hour or so to writing each day. I have other things going on. Sure, if I never got on the internet again and gave up my Solitaire habit I might have that kind of time at my disposal, but at this point... no. But I need to write more. Really. I know, I've said this a zillion times before, but I mean it this time. It's time for me to start taking my craft more seriously like my screenwriting professor insists.

So I leave you with this, and will dedicate the next 20 minutes to starting to write something, anything, to share with you tomorrow at some point.

“A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is: when I speak of writing, what comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or literary tradition, it is a person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and alone, turns inward; amid its shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man – or this woman – may use a typewriter, profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I have done for 30 years. As he writes, he can drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time he may rise from his table to look out through the window at the children playing in the street, and, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or he can gaze out at a black wall. He can write poems, plays, or novels, as I do. All these differences come after the crucial task of sitting down at the table and patiently turning inwards. To write is to turn this inward gaze into words, to study the world into which that person passes when he retires into himself, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy. As I sit at my table, for days, months, years, slowly adding new words to the empty page, I feel as if I am creating a new world, as if I am bringing into being that other person inside me, in the same way someone might build a bridge or a dome, stone by stone. The stones we writers use are words. As we hold them in our hands, sensing the ways in which each of them is connected to the others, looking at them sometimes from afar, sometimes almost caressing them with our fingers and the tips of our pens, weighing them, moving them around, year in and year out, patiently and hopefully, we create new worlds.”
- Orhan Pamuk in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature (December 2006)

Peace,
Willow