I know this is terribly late, but real life got in the way, which is always a bummer.
But I didn’t want an important milestone to go buy without at least a little bit of fanfare.
My little tiny goofy blog reached 50,000 all-time views this week!
I started this blog because I felt I had things to say. The same type of things I used to email to my coworkers all day at work, such as mix tape reviews, pet obituaries, poems, goofy pictures, and favorite songs, I now share with the world.
He looks like he is on the toilet
Sometimes I feel that technology complicates the world more than it helps. (And Facebook is definitely a time suck.) But I am never sad about the time I spend on my blog, and usually wish I had more time to spend here.
Stay tuned for my next few milestones: my 400th post, and publication of my first novel(la).
I was also going to write about what a great product Pedia-Lax glycerine suppositories are, as it got my almost 4 year old son pooping again. But then the next time we used it, it wasn’t effective for him. But, prune juice might be the new pooping miracle.
This is a country song from 1993. It is a song that I have tried hard over the years to remember the title and artist. According to Wikipedia, it never charted. Which is why it is hard to remember much about it. But that summer, I watched a lot of music videos on TNT and CMT. This video was in heavy rotation, and featured a very brief cameo by Davey Allison. I was impressed by this because I had just begun to watch NASCAR races (Shout out to Jeff Gordon!). Also, Davey Allison would die that same summer in a helicopter crash.
Under The Light of The Texaco on YouTube
3. Boom Clap – Charlie XCX
Love this song. Good beat, good lyrics, great to crank up to the max in the car and drive.
Boom Clap on YouTube
4. All About That Bass – Meghan Trainor
I am a little over this song now, but included it on this collection anyway. I was impressed with how original the sound was when I first heard it on the radio on our vacation to Gettysburg in August. I feel like it is the kind of song my best friend in high school and I would have run out and bought the cassette single of.
5. Don’t – Ed Sheeran
I got so excited when I heard this song on the radio. I was like, “Oh, one of my favorite American Idol alums Blake Lewis finally has a hit song that all the stations are playing.” Then I discovered it was actually Ed Sheeran who sings it. If some white boy was going to sing this song, it should have been Blake. He was robbed.
6. Cool Kids – Echosmith
I like this. Very me in 6th grade.
7. Habits – Tove Lo
This girl has a life I could never imagine living.
8. Yeah – Joe Nichols
I like Joe Nichols because I always think that he sounds like George Strait, although not so much in this song. This song is very similar to “Play It Again.” Hence, why I did not put them right next to each other.
9. God Made Girls – RaeLynn
This is a really sexist song, with lyrics such as:
Somebody’s gotta wear a pretty skirt,
Somebody’s gotta be the one to flirt,
Somebody’s gotta wanna hold his hand so God Made Girls
Somebody’s gotta make him get dressed up,
Give him a reason to wash that truck,
Somebody’s gotta teach him how to dance,
So God made girls.
(Written by RaeLynn, Nicolle Galyon, Lori McKenna, & Liz Rose)
And the girl’s voice annoys me because it reminds me of the girl who plays Scarlett on ABC’s Nashville. If these are truly the reasons why God made girls, then I am a complete failure as a girl. But it has a good beat and sounds like classic country, so I included it.
10. Girl in a Country Song – Maddie & Tae
This would be the antithesis of the previous song. And the next song. Which is why I LOVE that these three songs appear together in this order on this CD.
I love these lyrics:
Well I wish I had some shoes on my two bare feet
And it’s gettin’ kinda cold in these painted on cut off jeans
I hate the way this bikini top chafes
Do I really have to wear it all day?
Aww no, Conway and George Strait
Never did it this way
Back in the old days
Aww y’all, we ain’t a cliché
That ain’t no way
To treat a lady
(Written by Taylor Dye, Maddie Marlow, & Aaron Scherz)
Any song that references classic hit-makers like Conway Twitty and George Strait is number one in my book. And they totally have a point about the bikini tops and Daisy Duke shorts. And they manage to spin it into a very catchy song.
Girl in a Country Song on YouTube
11. Cruise – Florida Georgia Line
Cruise was released to pop radio as a mix with rapper Nelly, and was a huge hit. A few years ago. Yes, I am behind.
This song is exactly the type of song that Maddie & Tae were just rallying against. The girl is in her bikini top, riding along silently in the man’s pickup truck, traveling down a dirt road she doesn’t even want to be on. I love these songs as much as the next person (I did include it on this CD, afterall), but does EVERY country song have to sound like this?
I want to cut this pain
right out of me.
Take a sharp knife
and set it free.
There is no reason for this agony.
It is just my body
choosing to wage war
Against the everyday monotony.
And you can’t see it.
You can’t try to understand.
I hide the rolling sobs.
The hyperventilation is reserved
for my hiding place.
You only see the aftermath–
the red-rimmed eyes
the loud, ragged breaths.
You might be inclined
to want to help.
But you can’t.
There is no fucking way.
I have internalized
all of the bad in my world.
It boils inside of me,
robbing me of
my time
my youth
my sanity.
I want to roll up in a ball–
coccoon myself–
let the world just pass right over me.
Because I would rather feel nothing
than to feel this
instability every day.
–JLS 11/20/14
I might as well start by admitting that my literary choices do not always match those of the rest of the world.
I really REALLY loved Twilight. The WHOLE series. I have never read any books as many times as I have read those.
But it is not because they are great works of art. It is because I find them entertaining and enjoyable. I like to read about hot vampires and werewolves. I especially liked how Stephenie Meyer’s writing style reminded me of reading something my best friend would have written.
And I KNOW that you are groaning. But, sorry to say, millions of people around the world agree with me. The money don’t lie.
Everyone always talks about The Perks of Being a Wallflower as if it is some super-great book that I must read. So I did.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
WTF?
I read the last page, closed it, and said, “That book sucked.”
I am sure many will disagree with me. Maybe part of it was that it was from the viewpoint of a teenage boy, rather than a girl. But I had trouble getting past the writing style. It was written as a series of letters to an unknown friend. Sooo many things wrong with this. The letter-writing thing just felt hoaky and unnecessary. I felt as though the author was writing badly on purpose so that I would truly believe that Charlie wrote the letters himself. Except that I just found it distracting. And the so-called friend? It isn’t even anyone that he knows. And, at the end of the book, you STILL do not ever find out who he sends the letters to.
I did like that although it was recently made into a movie (I have not seen it), the book was actually published back in 1999, and actually takes place in 1991-1992 when Charlie was a freshmen in high school. I was a freshmen then, or close to it. That means the author must be my age. But Charlie did not listen to any of the same music or see any of the same movies of that time that would have helped me relate to his character.
I kept wondering if this kid was supposed to be Autistic? Then I wondered if he just was. There was even a bad child molestation and physical abuse subplot. I guess maybe that was supposed to be the plot? Or explain why the kid was weird? If it was supposed to, I missed it.
The best part of the book was when they stood in the back of a pick-up truck while driving through a tunnel. Incidentally, that was the best part of the movie trailer as well.
I never did figure out what the perks of being a wall flower were supposed to be. I could probably be considered “a wallflower”. There are no perks.
I bought this book specifically to study what other YA writers are writing about and how they are doing it. I thought I might be able to use this book to help me think of the heroine in my first book differently. But I just came out of it thinking, “If this book became a hit, maybe mine isn’t as bad as I think it is. Maybe it could be a hit too.”
I ordered this book from Amazon several months ago. It traveled around my house. I finally got a spot of time to read this delightful story.
Click here to purchase
The Weirdest Family is a children’s chapter fantasy book that focuses on a family made up of Abby the mom, Charlie the dad, Tesi the teenager, and Eliza precocious little sister. This book tends towards supernatural flights of fancy, so it comes in handy that there is an unknown narrator to keep the story on track.
And I am pretty sure the author must like sandwiches and nachos and fruit. They are mentioned several times.
You might think that you cannot have a gratifying book that includes zombies, vampires, mummies, super senses, God, and a baby man-eating bat. There are also aliens, and an apocalypse. But, once Tesi gets a palace for her birthday, it all begins to come together. Because, after all, don’t the most unusual families live in palaces?
And just when you think the story has come to a close, you turn the page, start a new chapter and a new adventure. This book is truly fantastical.
I didn’t just stumble across this book. A good friend of mine, who happens to have only been 9 years old at the time of publication, wrote it. I could never have written anything this impressive (let alone long) at her age.
I cannot imagine being 9 years old and seeing my book that I wrote for sale on Amazon. (There was no Internet, and therefore no Amazon when I was that age.)
But I WANT TO. I hunger, thirst, ache, crave, yearn to have my writing displayed like that for the world to partake of. (Thank you, thesaurus.com.)
To sum up, the title says it all. This is, indeed, The Weirdest Family. I also found them quite entertaining.
I'm not stalking you. 