New Year's intention for 2019

I think this looks like a great idea, something positive I can do to help me focus on the good that happens.  Are you willing to try it along with me?  You don't have to start with a new year, just because that's what I'm doing.  And you don't have to limit the notes to once a week, though that's a reminder to yourself to do it.  I may even consider telling you, here on this blog, some (or all) of the "good things" I notice each week.

Sunday Salon ~ keeping track of books

When I first started this blog, it didn't occur to me to make a list of books as I finished reading them.  It looks like I officially started keeping an online list in 2009, a couple of years after I started blogging.  I eventually came back to add earlier years, based on random lists I found:  2006, 2007, 2008.  I noticed this morning that the way I add to my lists has evolved.  In 2009, I simply listed each book, adding my rating only to those I wrote about and providing a link.  One example of a 10/10 book was Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl.  I continued that pattern in 2010, but I did write about more of the books I'd read that year.  That year, I put a few ratings beside books without links.  At the bottom of that year's list, I added this:

January favorite (#18) ~ February favorite (#28) ~ March favorite (#42) ~ April favorite (#59) ~ May favorite (#65) ~ June favorite (#77) ~ July favorite (#80) ~ August favorite (?) ~ October favorite (#102) ~ November favorite (#114) ~ December favorite (#116)

In 2011, I added a photo of my first great-granddaughter reading (that photo at the top).  From then on, I have added a picture of a reader at the top of  my lists every year.  Looking at my favorites became easier, since I started adding a captioned photos each month, rather than at the end of the year.  That was awkward, trying to find a dozen favorites scattered throughout the year's list (well, I seem not to have HAD a favorite in August).  I also sorted out how many books I'd read were fiction, YA fiction, children's, essays, graphic novels, history, memoir, philosophy, religion, women's studies, or writing.  That didn't last.  Too detailed.  Who cares?  But it's also the year I started adding a photo of each month's favorite book, and that feature has stuck.

In 2012, my first great-grandson was the reader.  I added my rating system so people could understand exactly why I assigned one number or another.

10 - Loved it!! Couldn't put it down!!
9 - Excellent!
8 - Very Good
7 - Good
6 - Above Average
5 - Average
Anything lower - Nah
* DNF - Did Not Finish

Kiki Cat was reading at the top of my 2013 book list.  That's photographic proof that she read those books she reviewed over the years.  That book was My Cat: The Silliest Cat in the World by Gilles Bachelet, which she reviewed here.  Kiki gave it a 10 out of 10 because she loved the book.  It was actually her very favorite, ever.  Both of my great-grandchildren were at the top of the 2014 book list.  Jaxon was reading a book I'd given him, and I was reading Hop on Pop to Raegan.  Atop the 2015 book list is Raegan, reading in the car.

My twin great-grandsons were reading a cloth book on the 2016 book list.  Okay, they were looking at the book, which I'm sure their mother read to them at some point.  In 2017, another great-granddaughter was shown reading.  As she knelt in front of her play table turning the pages, she was strengthening her broken leg as it healed (see her photo below).  In December 2016, I had added quotes from two of the books I'd read.  Only two, but it was a start.  In 2017, I included at least one quote from every book listed.

And now we've reached 2018, when I made another change.  Not only have I been adding several quotes from every book, but I've also been occasionally adding more than one "favorite book" a month.  I read eleven books in May and added "another May favorite."  I read ten books in June and share THREE favorites.  Of the thirteen books I read in July, I picked two favorites.  I've already picked two favorites (so far) in December, and I still have today and tomorrow to finish another book or two.  What I'm reading now isn't a favorite, but there's always the possibility I'll dash through an excellent book in the next day, right?

Update 1-1-19:

Now my youngest great-grandchild (of six) is shown reading a book, sideways!  She's two years old in this photo and represents books I read in 2019.

Jane died 5 years ago

I've been trying to decide what to say about my friend Jane Yelliott, who died five years ago.  I wrote about her lots of times on this blog, but today I seem to be just browsing through what's already posted.  I also read her blog, ramblings of an artist, which I helped her set up on Wednesday, January 4, 2012. Yes, she gave me credit that day, and her last post on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 was about the death of my beloved Kiki Cat four days earlier.  I left her blog's very first comment, ending with:  "I will add it (her blog) to the sidebar of Bonnie's Books."  The link to her blog is still there, on the right, though it's way down at the bottom and currently says she last posted six years ago.

Jane was an accomplished artist.  She was honored by the city of Chattanooga with a plaque on the Walnut Street Bridge, along with Bessie Smith and other notables.  In this photo, there's a glazed tile showing TC the cat on the wall behind the man, which she later gave to me when she was dying in December 2013.  It isn't the only piece of her artwork I have, but I remember Jane apologized when she gave it to me, apologized that she didn't get MY cat painted as she had promised.  According to Jane's daughter, "TC" stands for "Top Cat."  (Click on the photo to enlarge it and see the cat better.)

From Jane's blog post about TC:

TC did just appear one day when he seemed to be about 3 months old.  Somehow he knew that he would be taken in without question.   What a love he was - and the only kitten I ever knew whose tail touched his head when he walked.

What else can I say?  Jane gave me a stuffed tiger to hug after Kiki died.  That tiger is still on a shelf in my apartment, even though I now have Clawdia Cat, who often sleeps on my bed.

I took care of Jane's cat Babe when she traveled, and Babe shared the toy in this photo with me.  Jane was the friend I was meeting when I tripped and shattered my shoulder.  She donned red and celebrated the Chinese New Year with Donna and me and was among the friends I invited over.  In other words, Jane was a very big part of my life, and I still miss her.  A lot.  Let me end by sharing what Jane wrote about procrastination and having a mental termite:

annotation: March 24, 2012
I just discovered what my problem is. I have a mental termite.!!!
Nell Mohney proclaimed in her column today that procrastination is a mental termite!  If I had bats in my belfry would they take care of that?

Ah, yes!   I really do miss Jane's wonderful sense of humor.

Beginning ~ in the end

Prologue: In the End

"The end came quickly, and there wasn't any pain."

What a strange beginning, right?  Just at the prologue is backwards, so is the epilogue, according to the table of contents.

Epilogue: At the Beginning

Elsewhere ~ by Gabrielle Zevin, 2005, YA fiction

Is it possible to grow up while getting younger?  Welcome to Elsewhere.  It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous.  It's quiet and peaceful.  You can't get sick or any older.  Curious to see new paintings by Picasso?  Swing by one of Elsewhere's museums.  Need to talk to someone about your problems?  Stop by Marilyn Monroe's psychiatric practice.

Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died.  It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different.  Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth.  But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again.  She wants to get her driver's license.  She wants to graduate from high school and go to college.  And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met.  And it is not going well.  How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one?  Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?

Am I intrigued?  Oh, yeah.  I got this book from the library yesterday and started reading immediately.   It isn't like anything I've ever read before, and I'm loving it ... imagining life lived in reverse.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click this link for other book beginnings.

Med-DASH Diet

The DASH Diet Mediterranean Solution: The Best Eating Plan to Control Your Weight and Improve Your Health for Life ~ by Marla Heller, 2018, health

The DASH diet has been a staple of the dieting world, recommended by doctors and nutritionists, and #1 on the US News and World Report's best diet list for 8 years in a row.  But popular tastes and medical guidelines have evolved, and The DASH Diet Mediterranean Solution presents a new approach to the time-tested diet program that highlights the benefits of whole foods.  Marla Heller, who has an MS degree and is a Registered Dietician, has overhauled the DASH plan to reflect the latest, cutting-edge research on hypertension, diabetes, depression, and other health issues that impact millions of Americans.  Meal planning gets a new focus on unprocessed foods (less sugar-free jello and more fresh fruits), with new seafood options and even a whole section examining vegan and vegetarian choices.  She has included four weeks of menus along with lots of strategies and research for a new approach to health the DASH diet way.

This book was published on Monday, so I don't yet have a copy.  But I have already joined the new Mediterranean DASH Diet group on Facebook.  The Med-DASH check-off form was added today on the official page of DASH Diet forms.  Does anybody want to join me so we can work on this healthy way of life together?

Two new books

For One More Day ~ by Mitch Albom, 2006, fiction

Mitch Albom, author of the bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, returns with a haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.  It explores the question:  What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?  As a child, Charley Benetto is told by his father, "You can be a mama's boy or or you can be a daddy's boy, but you can't be both."  So he chooses his father and worships him ― right up to the day he disappears.  Eleven-year-old Charley must then turn to his mother, who bravely raises him on her own.

Decades later, Charley is a broken man.  His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret.  He loses his job, leaves his family, hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding, and decides to take his own life.  He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in.  On failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to discover that his mother ― who died eight years earlier ― is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing had ever happened.

What follows is the one "ordinary" day so many of us yearn for, a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets, and to seek forgiveness.  Somewhere between this life and the next, Charley learns the things he never knew about his mother and her sacrifices.  And he tries, with her tender guidance, to put the crumbled pieces of his life back together.

Harvest: Collected Poems and Prayers, 2nd edition ~ by Ruth F. Brin, 1986, 1999, poetry

Brin is one of the liturgical pioneers of the post-World War Two era.  In the 1950s, when most Jewish women still seemed content with their traditional subordinate role in public worship, she was already at work modernizing traditional Jewish prayers and texts and offering new interpretive readings and original poetry reflecting her own religious experience.

This second new book I've added to my shelves (not counting the e-books added to my Kindle) is one I've already told you about, so click the title for more about it.  The first new book was a Christmas gift from my daughter.  Thanks, Sandra.  It looks intriguing.  Have you read it?

Have a very Meow-y Christmas!

I wish you a Meow-y Christmas,
I wish you a Meow-y Christmas,
I wish you a Meow-y Christmas,
and a Happy New Year!

Could you "hear" the tune as you read that?  Did you sing it along with me?  Sending Christmas wishes to you and your cat and your dog and your parakeet and any other pets and loved ones.

I used this photo and the Meow-y Christmas idea eight years ago, and I still get a kick out of it.