Smokey Robinson & Bed Rest

So here is something that sucks: I am still sick. This pneumonia just will not abate. I had to miss yet another week of work. I feel so bad! I went in for my shift Tuesday and immediately realized that being there was a mistake. Thankfully I work with understanding people who gave me the rest of the week off. I still feel bad though. My checking account will also feel bad. What can you do though? Just get better, I guess.

The good things about being home sick are that I get to be with my dogs and I get to drink a lot of delicious juice that I would never drink otherwise. Other than those things though, nothing is very good about this. I can't really even read more than normal because I am so flipping tired all the time. When I do have energy I basically just stare at the T.V.

I did finished The Pact by Jodi Picoult today. So that was kind of productive. For being sick at least... I really liked it. The last half was basically unputdownable. I'm very surprised. I didn't expect to enjoy a Jodi Picoult book. I'm not sure if I will read more of her stuff, but this was definitely good. My one critique is that the ending was a little sappy for my taste. That's okay. We can all use a little sap once in a while.
Rating: 8/10

Up next I am reading Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help by Douglas Anthony Cooper. I got this book a long time ago and totally forgot about it. It is a young adult novel about a boy who talks to dead people and has to see a psychologist. It is supposed to be really funny and awesome. Ideally I picture it being a bit like Neil Gaiman style. That would be nice...

I also wanted to say that I loved The Silent Land by Graham Joyce. I finished it earlier this week and rated it, but didn't review it. It was so different and creepy. I could not put it down and immediately bought a couple more novels by Joyce. It was a super refreshing take on creepiness. The story was really neat too. I believe it is considered a horror/fantasy novel. I don't think that is accurate though. You can't really place it in a category. Kind of hard to explain, but it's true.


Have a good evening everyone!

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book."  -Irish Proverb

Pneumonia

For the past week I haven't had the internet and I have had a horrible case of pneumonia. We now have internet, but unfortunately, I still have pretty bad pneumonia. I took all last week off work in hopes that it would make me better. It didn't. I have to return to work tomorrow and I am not looking forward to it. Firstly because I feel like shit. Secondly because I doubt customers are going to want their lattes made by someone coughing up a lung. I just want to sleeeeeeep :(

If I attempt to write a long blog tonight all that is going to happen it a ton of complaining. I don't want to be sick and that is basically the only thing I have to say. Here are the books I have read while being sick and what I rate them:

• Help! A Bear is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen 5/10
• UR by Stephen King 5/10
• Riding the Bullet by Stephen King 6/10
• The Silent Land by Graham Joyce 9/10 

Now I am reading The Pact by Jodi Picoult. I have never read anything by her. So far it's fine.

Caution: Everyone's Sick

Hey everyone. Guess what? I'm still sick. Hence not blogging for a week. I have been going through roughly one box of Kleenex per day and had to miss another day of work last week. I finally feel like I am getting better, but man has this lasted a long time!!! Turns out a ton of people are dealing with pretty much the same thing. A horrible cold that is lasting 2+ weeks. It is the worst. Feel better everyone. And for gods sake, take a couple days off of work so it stops being spread around. If I get sick again I'm going to throw a fit!

I finished Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut. It was fine. I had a good time reading it, but I had much higher expectations for it. When I read Vonnegut I never know exactly what to expect, but this one was sort of flat. Maybe it wasn't as funny as I wanted it to be. It certainly had less of a story than his other novels I have read.

Rating: 5/10

Last night I read The Painted Darkness by Brian James Freeman. It is around 200 pages and it is super captivating. It is about a man who had something traumatize him as a child that he suppressed. Now as an adult he 'paints the darkness away'. Basically, he is a man with serious issues and this is a horror/creepy book. I was very into it the whole time and couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen...and then it ended... WHAT? Yeah. It just ended. With no ending or anything. My thought on this was the author planned on it being a much longer novel and then he didn't know how to wrap it up so he just stopped writing. It was that abrupt. So I have really mixed feelings about it as a whole. Go ahead and read it, but expect the 'ending' to be super disappointing.

Rating: 7/10

Now I am reading The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. My mom says it is really good and the past few books she has recommended have been really good. I'm just a few pages into it. Hopefully I will read a bunch tonight. I thought I would be reading this afternoon, but sick-brain is just making me watch T.V. and sit. Like a zombie.

Here are some good links about dreams/sleep:

Amazing Dream Facts

Sleep Facts

(I literally sat and read about sleep and dreams for two hours the other evening. Totally dazing out while on cold medicine. These were two of the most interesting articles. I also read about serial killers for a couple hours, but this stuff is more happy :))

To everyone who is sick: Take time to rest and feel better.

To everyone who is not sick: Be nice to the sick people!

Have a good day people :)

Being Sick

This has been an insane week. I am super sick. It is a huge pain in the ass. I have had to miss a couple days of work, which is no good and makes me sad. I do not like to call in sick! I also have a ton to do to get ready for college. Including financial aid stuff that is confusing. I guess looking at this all written down, it doesn't look very insane. It just feels that way. Probably because I am seeing through sick colored glasses.

Reading on my Kindle has been awesome so far. Literally no complaints. I definitely prefer it to the Nook, which is a nice bonus, because I only changed e-readers due to customer service issues. I didn't think that the devices would be that different, but they are. Here are some of the biggest differences as far as I'm concerned:

• The Kindle is a lot more basic. You don't customize things as much and it doesn't have games.
• 
  The Kindle is much, much smaller. Very nice for reading one handed.
• It also has WAY nicer buttons for turning pages if you like to read one handed.
• Speaking of buttons, I prefer Kindles buttons to the Nook touch screen that works only half the time.
• Navigation on Kindle is a lot more simple.
• On the Kindle, fonts are way more customizable. You can change every little thing about them.
• Kindle shows percentage read as opposed to pages read on the Nook. This makes more sense because on e-readers, sometimes one page is actually four page clicks.

There are a lot more differences, but unless you have an e-reader, you could probably care less, so I won't go on and on :)

I finished the Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson. I liked it a lot, didn't love it. It was a little bit slow getting into and I preferred the flashback parts to the present. This novel held my attention and it was a lot of fun. I was surprised how much sexual stuff the movie left out. Pedophilia, midget sex, more pedophilia... you get the point. It had a great ending. This book did not disappoint!

Rating: 7/10

Last night, while in a Nyquil haze, I started reading The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. I am 25% into it and am loving it. This may be due to the fact that I too am obsessed with books and can somewhat relate to the book thief. I don't know if this was meant to be a book you relate to, but for me it is. Since getting my Nook, and now my Kindle, my obsession with owning physical copies of books has dissipated, but it used to be somewhat out of control. It still kind of is even with an e-reader. Books are my passion. That is basically what this book is about. It is a true crime story, so it also fits into my year goal of reading more nonfiction. Go me!

It seems like everyone is sick right now, so get better!!! Hopefully these flu bugs and colds will go away very soon.

Here are some quotes:

"How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being."- Oscar Wilde

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."- Albert Camus

"If you want to be happy, be."- Leo Tolstoy