Books to Read

...I want to read...?

I must be getting old...

I have recently discovered that the only stories that I can actually follow and understand, besides the Disney collections (not that there is anything wrong with that) is the Harry Potter series. Growing up, my comprehension skills sucked, and I have always struggled with learning and understanding things unless I had some sort of visual prop to help me. It started with the movie The Lorax. A few nights ago, Jayson and I went to Vince and Kelly's house for dinner and to watch The Lorax. I realized that I had never read that book as a kid and didn't know anything about the story. I ended up falling asleep after the introduction and woke up during the ending song and was a bit bummed that I still have no clue what it's about! Other than everyone in Thneedville (yes, Thneedville) has plastic trees and plants....

Anywhoozies, this made me realize that there are a few other series that I have seen the movies for, but never read their books. Now I know that most people prefer to books over the movies because movies tend to be a let down because they either change things in the story line, or don't put in 'the good parts. I, however, like to see the movie before I read the books. It's mostly because I'm a visual learner, and I need to have an image of the characters or setting in my mind for me to understand the books. Use your imagination- Well, the problem with my imagination is.... it doesn't keep thoughts and images consistently connected...

So as I said, there are a few series that I've decided that I'd like to read over the next few years. Now I'm hoping that it won't take me a full year to complete one series, since most of them are usually only three books, but I'm just gonna set a year deadline for each series anyway.

Harry Potter in 2012

"You've never read the series?!"

No, no I have not.

Honestly, I hated this series when The Sorcerer's Stone came out. I remember my elementary school librarian, Mrs. Lock, telling us that she just got this awesome book and thinks it would be a fantastic read for us all to try. You know that old saying, 'Don't judge a book by it's cover"? Well, I was in elementary school, and i always did that. And I remember looking at the cover and thinking 'well this looks dumb.' Then a little while later, I had a sleepover with a friend who lived down the street and when she asked me if I had seen the new Harry Potter movie, she told me that I HAD to see it.... I really wasn't excited about that idea, but I watched it anyway, and then I was hooked. Shortly after The Chamber of Secrets came out, I read that book at least five times and ended up doing my 5th grade book report on it. When The Prizoner of Azkaban came out, I had heard that it wasn't a very good book. Toward the end of the year I started reading The Goblet of Fire in class and my teacher had asked me why I had chosen to do my last book report on that book when she knew that I hadn't read PofA. When I told her that I had heard PofA wasn't very good, she did not give me permission to do my report on GofF unless I had read PofA first. At that point, I gave up on reading anymore and did my report on an entirely different book.

Over the years, my grandmother bought me books 1-4 in hopes that i would read them, but the movies hadn't come out for them yet so I didn't want to read them because it was too hard for me to follow. Now that the series is over, and there are no more Harry Potter movies in the making, *tear*, I've decided that I want to read all seven books before the end of the year.

Star Wars in 2013

I saw Episode 1 when I was younger, and really enjoyed it. I had never seen Episode 4, 5, or 6 up until four or five years ago. I didn't really enjoy the last three episodes (well, I guess technically they're the first three...),but I think that was because they were made in like.....the 80's? Ya, I have no clue when they were made...but I hate the graphics, and it bugs me to watch them. I'm weird, I know. But anyway, I really enjoyed the first three movies so I've wanted to read the series.

The Chronicles of Narnia in 2014

I remember my summer school teacher reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to us every morning in my English class. Again I judged the book by its cover, but by the end of the story, I actually thought it was pretty good, and the movie turned out great! I never went back and saw Prince Caspian when it came out, or read the rest of the series, but after having recently rented Prince C., it's made me want to go back and read the series.

~ ~ ~

So far that is all that's on my upcoming reading list. I'm not really one to jump into a new series when it's popular.. and right now, there isn't a series that's booming or seeming to be too popular, besides 50 Shades of Grey, but that is not at all any type of book or series that I would even consider getting into... I do wonder though what will be the new series that every kid follows like our generation did for the Harry Potter series. Will there ever even be a book/movie series where people come to the midnight premieres dressed as the characters? Will there ever be another series where one of the not-so-popular-characters from the 2nd movie endes up making another appearance in the last movie and when his death comes, the entire theater sheds a tear? Will there ever be another series where the entire theater is shocked that 'Snape' was there all along; always?

YouTube Channel

I made a YouTube Channel.
http://www.youtube.com/user/aanderson805/feed?filter=2

But just FYI, all of my Video Logs where I answer questions will be

PRIVATE

which means that you have to have the link to access them...

Don't worry though!

The link will always be posted here on my blog :)

Any other videos I make will be public on my YTC.

MAKE YOUR SUGGESTIONS

ASK QUESTIONS

Shout 'em out loud!

Vlog#1 Q&A

Okay keep in mind that I suck at editing videos, and for some reason I had to cut out some stuff because the last version of this video that I tried to upload stopped randomly after a minute and a half... -_- I promise my vlogs will improve more over time.... haha

Bye Bye, Birdie...

I house sit for a family on a fairly regular basis. All I really have to do is take care of their animals and then sit around at their house all day. In their front room, they have two large windows that stretch from the ceiling to the floor. The dogs were asleep on the ground, the bird they had was playing around in it's cage, and I was cuddle up with the cat on the couch while Jayson spent Saturday morning running finance checks and creating budgets and meal plans for the next couple of weeks. I remember being almost asleep when I hear this loud crash against the window....

This poor birdie flew right into the window and fell on the ground. The poor guy had some obvious neck and head damage... He was flapping only one of his wings while laying on his right side on the ground, his head was tilted all the way back so he was touching his back, and his left eye was closed. While flapping his wings, he was doing back flips. Poor guy! :(

Jayson picked him up and tried to straighten out his left wing and checked out his neck to see if it was broken. None of the damage seemed to be too extreme because the bird was really calm and let Jayson hold him and move his wing and neck around to a more comfortable position. The only 'main damage' he had was that his left eye never opened back up again and he was missing a few feathers on his head...

Jayson and I had no clue what to do with this bird, but I didn't want to just leave him in the yard because I didn't want their cat, Buzz, to come eat him. I suggested that we call Wild Animal Services, or the zoo at Moorpark College to see if they would take him in. Jayson grabbed a towel and I put the dogs, Kody and Jin, in the back yard so they wouldn't trample us when we walked into the house with a bird. I called my friend Heather, who is studying the EATM (Exotic Animal Training and Management) program up at Moorpark College to see if she knew anything we could do. She said that if we brought him to the zoo at school all they would do is probably kill him and feed him to the animals, or let one of the students kill them cause they have to learn how to 'prepare the food' that the other animals eat. Jayson's heart broke at the thought of that so that idea got thrown out of the window immediately. We tried calling animal control and other wild animal offices here in the county but no one would return our calls.

After several failed attempts to find any sort of animal hospital that would help us come up with a solution, I suggested to Jayson that we should probably just put him back outside and let him die naturally.. He was probably going to die even if we took him to a vet/hospital anyway. Jayson looked at me in utter disgust at the fact that I had suggested that to him. I didn't understand why he was so upset at my suggestion. I found it to be rather silly because all I could think about was how many diseases this bird may have and I was worried about our health. Jayson was almost in tears just thinking about the thought of this bird dying in his hands, which was very likely to happen. I asked him why he was so worked up about this bird and he looked at me and said, "This bird is one of God's creations...just like you. Why should he be treated any differently than if it were you who was injured and needed help."

I was shocked. Completely at a loss for words. He is right. And I felt so selfish at the fact that all I wanted to do with this thing was leave him in the streets (essentially) to die... but Jayson wanted to love him and nurture him, and treated him like the creation of God that he was.. It just brought me to such a realization that everything in this world was created by God and nothing was created any differently or with any less love than a human. Jayson probably didn't realize it at the time, but he taught me a lesson that I needed to learn with just that one sentence...... After about 9:00pm last night, we hadn't heard from any animal hospital. We said a prayer for this bird and felt like we should put him in a safe place outside for the night to see if being in his natural habitat would help him.

Before we got in the car to head out to church this morning, Jayson walked over to the bird to check on him. He was still alive and his wing was back into its normal position. He actually had been walking around in the dirt next to a few bushes. Jayson picked him up and gently pushed him off of his hand to see if he could fly and he sort of flew from his hand back into the bushes. He picked him up again and tried to get him to fly one last time. The bird flew out of Jayson's hand and flew into the middle of the street. Jayson turned to look at me and we both cheered and were so glad to see the bird fly. The moment that Jayson turned to look at me, a GIANT, and I mean GIANT hawk flew down, grabbed the bird by his feet, and took off into a tree. Jayson and I stood there in shock and almost started crying. It was the saddest thing that has ever happened!!!!

Poor birdie....

I Won't Give Up

sdalfksdlkfa
Ever go to write a blog post and endup erasing the first sentence 100 times
because you are afraid of what your readers will say?
afraid of being judged?
It souldn't matter... its my blog...right?
Well..........
It still bugs me..

I've been obsessed with this song lately....
Jason Mraz wrote it because he was waiting for someone
(so Wikipedia tells me but we know how trustworthy that is....)

But this song has been meaning a lot more to me lately
and meaning something different than 'waiting for someone'
..but I felt like sharing because

I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm givin' you all of my love

God knows we're worth it

I'm still looking up

I won't give up on us
God knows I'm tough enough
We've got a lot to learn

God knows we're worth it