What We're Reading

I've talked a bunch about Engaged Encounter and how that community changed hubby's and i's life., well, i guess changed isn't the right word..cuz we were good going in..perhaps a better word is supported and enabled us to live a good married life??? yes, i think that sounds better...
one of the principles that we present to the couples is The Decision Making Process. It involves several steps one of which is seeking advice or opinion from a person/place that has a firm education on what ever topic it is your are trying to discern.
for me as you have read in the past, when i am trying to make a decision or rather develop an opinion on something i go get books. i love love book stores...i love the used book store - i love B&N's particularlay for the large overstuffed seats that i am determined to spend sometime sitting in when both the wee ones are in school!!
The past couple weeks i've been reading the second of three books by Nora Roberts...it is the Hollow trilogy. it's pretty good for fiction. i have to watch my fiction reading...b/c it can be like a drug to me and when i get into a book and its characters i can't put it down..i neglect all else in order to know what happens next. Historical fiction is a favorite although i'd rather watch a historical fiction movie than read it. i only have a few short pages to finish Hollow II and then i have to wait till december when the final book comes out...that i don't like...the wait... i don't so much like series books, and i should have rememberd that since i never did finished Flowers in the Attic when i was a teenager!! oh well.
eh hum.
R/V and i have a fondness for our bargain book store around the corner and we found ourselves there the other day. Picked up a book in a series that R is reading..The Edge and V picked up Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II in anticipation of the movie. (i have yet to see a movie that was better than its booK have you??)
In anticipation of the premier of Mad Men on TV i picked up another book by Ayn Rand. now i'm really not sure how i came to read her novel Fountainhead. but i read it a couple years ago....i fought to get through it...her line of social/economic theory turns my brain inside out. i have found it hard to truly understand her position on social order. she challenges me...and...that is good...so...i'll be challenging my brain to some gymnastics with The Early ... i'm espcially challenged b/c i had a Director once that really seemed to 'get' Ayn Rand and that made me feel stupid...
Hubby is on again off again with his book of essays The Fight Is for Democracy. it is a cool little book that allows you to pick it up for a half hour..get something out of it and put it back down until the next time. I have always teased hubby that for all his touting that he is a Republican...i really truly think he is more like one of the original democrats..the Founding Fathers if you will....so i picked this book up for him..on the cover it says..New Liberal Unorthodoxies from...and then lists its essay's authors. I thought he'd get a kick out of the whole 'unorthodoxie' word. so far..hes reading but hasn't made to many comments.
For inspiration for the blog and in support of my Melecolonic personality styles i picked up my guy Tim Russert's Wisdom of our Fathers book.
Tread lightly when reading this book..it is deep man...way deep and will either make you love your dad for or hate him for not being like one of the men in the book....i do however like the parts when a writer talks about his/her fathers hands...all the time i've known hubby...i've marveled at his hands...knarled and strong...evidence of his commitment to work...i think that is kewl!!
I picked up Obama From Promise to Power to begin the process of getting 'into the man'. i can't keep licking my Hillary wounds..i've got to move on...so...my first step is reading this..i'll then pick up the book on McCain...wow...did you see the cover comic of the New Yorker a couple weeks ago....really put oboma out there. if i recall from a media and politics class...that cover is one of those insignifant things that can wind up loosing a campaign for a man/woman. it has happened b/4...that cartoon just played to the potential ignorance 'out there'...i don't think it is a good idea to support ignorance...even if you think it is a joke and 'the smart' people will get it...
ok...done with that one...
the last book i'm checking out and really the inspiration for this post is The Temperament God Gave You. It sucked me in with the first line in the introduction "The temperaments...isn't that sort of like Catholic astrology?" it made me laugh b/c for my Communications major thesis i presented the topic of astrological placements and its potential impact on personality. now, don't laugh at me...i was at the same time working on my Thesis for my Poly Sci degree where i presented the finer points of Amnesty International and the really neat music that Sting was writing about Pinochet...and how letter writing can bust open jail cells...uh em...
for the past month or so our son Mr. K has been bustin out of his usual self. he's become defiant and a little sassy...ever the lover and most often time sympathetic..but just finding his way to time out way too often.
When i have found myself in this place b/4 with the other kids..i would always refer back to a collection of books shared by my great friend EB (welcome home by the way) that detailed the wit and personality style of a child at a particular age.
one of the underlying theories of the book is that a child ride a wave in the shape of a coil or a spring with birthdays at either end. some kids demonstrate maturity right at the time of a birthday and then find struggle as it comes closer to the next birthday..and visa versa. my girls followed that pretty well (and still do) but it changes from year to year sometimes...anyway...with the challenges put b/4 us by mr. k i felt it was time to dig a little deeper into our almost four year old....oh my gosh....he is really THAT old???? Amy Z..you told me so...ha ha...
At rosary group last week one of the girls was giving back to the owner this particular book on temperaments. Brandi offered it to me to read and i thought..wow...this is exactly what i need right now....and then inside my little brain is shout...thank you Jesus....
this study of temperaments is similar to the Myers Briggs and those other personality style studies. i always loved taking the surveys and finding out 'what combination of letters' i was..but...in my Short Term Memory Loss Dory style..it and it's advice rarley sunk in and stuck...eh hum....i do however remember that I'm OK and You're OK ha hahaha...anybody else have a parent that went through a period of transational analysis study??? oh and those macramé plant holders with the big bamboo beads...tee hee...love you mom!!!
getting back....
thus far i've read the chapters on determining your child and your spouses temperament...in order to figure mine out i have to calculate my answers to the self analysis quiz the book has. i'm pretty sure however that i...me..myself..and I am a melancholic and my hubby is a phlematic as is one of his daughters...the other daughter its my impression is a choleric...alas...i have yet to determine what my boy is up to...gulp...and LU...well...just look at Big Lu...then we know!! :) i'm thinking that this book will give me some food for thought on the big girls...and...i just know that for my son....the coming of a birthday will be worse than the passing of one!! at least THIS year...!!

kisses to all!!