I will start updating more. I will start updating more. I will start updating more. I will start updating more. I will...

Maybe if I write it enough times, it will stick. ;)

So. My health has been doing a lot better, overall, as has my sisters' health. However, the past couple of weeks have been a bit rough as all the pollen came out. I always get migraines this time of year. Also, something that doesn't help...apparently, Zyrtec makes me sleepy. Very sleepy. A whole pill was too much, so I tried half of one. Still too much. After a few days of taking a quarter of a pill every night, it makes me so tired, I sleep all day. So no more Zyrtec for me. I don't think it was really helping my allergies anyway. :P

I'm trying to keep up with all the books I read this year. There are a lot of deeper books I want to read, but haven't been reading, because it's hard for me to concentrate enough when I'm sick and getting bad headaches. I've been reading quite a few Agatha Christie books, which I love. Hercule Poirot is great.

We're getting settled in a new church, which is really nice. After church hunting for a while, it's great to have found the place we want to be. :) We already knew some people there, which helped as well. It's easier being at a new place if you already know people there.

I found this through ladyneferankh and wanted to join too.

songofsummer posted about keeping track of all the books you read this year, and encourages people to do so. She makes some good points regarding what we read, and I think this will be beneficial for me. I was already wanting to keep such a list, but maybe this will help keep me at it, as I planned to do the same last year, but slacked off after a while.

So if you're interested, go have a look, and let her know you'd like to be added to the list! :)

I posted this over at HSA and thought I'd post it here as well:

How much would you put up with in books or movies? I'll tolerate a bit, but there are times so much is wrong and all they care about is having a good story, and that rather ruins it for me. For instance, a WWII movie where some of the uniforms used wouldn't have been worn for another 15 years, where they have people in the OSS before it was even formed, where they have songs that weren't even released yet being sung, etc. Or a Civil War movie where people aren't acting appropriately for the time period, historical facts are all messed up, etc. When a movie is just full of things that were wrong/didn't happen at the time, I get fed up and find it too hard to enjoy the movie.

With something like Pirates of the Caribbean, I can overlook it more. That was meant to have fantasy elements, so it's not as bad, I don't think. But when something is trying to be passed off as "a WWII movie" or something set during the Civil War or whatever, I think people should do what they can to make it as accurate as possible. Also with writing. I've seen people on a writing forum who basically don't care if they get historical facts right. "So what if they didn't wear crinolines for 20 more years? I want my characters wearing them and want it set in this era."

So I thought I'd come ask all you about it and get y'all's opinion on historical accuracy in fiction, though this post is quite a bit longer than I intended. :P Do you care if a film or book is historically accurate? Does it really matter all that much? Why or why not?

I love that line from Walk the Line. Seriously though, I may just have it. I can barely talk, anyway. I went to the doctor last Wednesday and got on asthma medicine(thank you all for the prayers!!) and that's doing a lot better. But I'm having a lot of sinus trouble, with a swollen gland, migraines, and excrutiating sinus pain. And now I can barely talk and have a very sore throat. It's so hard not to talk though! At least I know sign language, and can use that with my family, but still...I really should stop trying to talk, as that's probably only making it worse.

Not really much else going on. I've been reading the book Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. I finished it yesterday. It was very good, quite intriguing. I'm reading a few other books now, while trying to decide which one I really want to read.

augustine asked me who my favorite author is, so I thought I'd share my response here as well:

Tolkien, with CS Lewis coming in very closely at second. It's because of Tolkien's works that I love writing as I do. When I first read Fellowship of the Ring, I knew I wanted to write. His writing style was so beautifully descriptive, and the story was so wonderfully crafted together that it inspired me to try to write. However, growing up reading The Chronicles of Narnia helped grow my imagination, which is a very valuble thing in a child. I think it's very important for children to use their imaginations and want to learn and create, and that's becoming so rare now, with most children spending free time just watching tv or playing video games. So both Tolkien and Lewis have had great impacts on my life, and between the two of them, have written my favorite fiction books.

...that's what it's been around here. I planned on updating more, but things have been rather rough this week. We had to have our dog Katie put down yesterday, which has been quite hard on us all. I was supposed to have gotten my newsletter out by now, but between me being sick and us dealing with everything regarding Katie, it just hasn't happened yet.

I think I'm getting over the cold, though I'm still not sure if I'm going downtown tomorrow night or not. My asthma is still bothering me and keeping me up a lot at night, so I'm exhausted. I'd like to go, but I also don't want to push myself. I need to get better, not do so much I don't have any time to rest.

I finished Wuthering Heights Tuesday night. It was quite an interesting book. I don't see it being something I'd read again, but I am glad I read it. In that book club, there's currently a tie between Pride and Prejudice and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I've read P&P four or five times, and don't want to read that one again right now. However, I've been wanting to read Dorian Gray again anyway. I read it a little over a year ago, and was already wanting to read it again before this book club. I would enjoy being able to discuss the book with a group of people as I read it. I'd also like to read Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde again and write an essay/article comparing and contrasting it with Dorian Gray.

Saturday, Daddy ended up giving away the puppy. However, we're getting something else in a few weeks. I grew up with cats, at one point having 16 between our adult cats and their kittens. I've missed having cats, and so have my sisters. We had some friends offer us some kittens, and this weekend, my parents said we can get two! We're getting the kittens in a few weeks, when they're old enough. We're going to get two females, and we're probably naming them Susan and Lucy.

I found out that the music group I had been going to is taking a break over the summer and won't be meeting again until September. So I'm not going to be going back to that for a while.

Saturday, my cousin and her fiancé, who we all really want to meet, are going to be in town. We're excited about that! :)

I've really been working on eating healthier lately, being careful about what I eat. I've been watching the amount of sugar I eat, cutting back on Dr Pepper a lot, and just generally trying to eat healthier. And what do I have to show for it? I've got a cold, which is irritating my asthma again. I'm just kidding...I'm still going to work on eating healthier, but it is rather ironic that I should get a cold just now when I haven't had one in many months.

When we got home Friday night, I thought I was probably coming down with one, as I felt miserable. I felt that way off and on all weekend, then today, I've been completely exhausted and haven't felt up to doing much of anything. I had an asthma attack Saturday night after just eating a small amount of ice cream, so I'm pretty much cutting all dairy out of my diet for a while now, until well after the cold is gone. Even then, I'm going to be very careful about how much cheese, ice cream, etc. I eat, and just have it in moderation. I had another asthma attack last night, worse than I've had in months. Crying and getting upset can bother asthma, and that flareup was brought on from me crying during the movie last night. So after those two asthma attacks, I'm taking this pretty seriously again. Since colds worsen asthma, I'm hoping I'll be a lot better again once the cold goes away. I haven't had asthma attacks like this in months, so I'm thinking it must be the cold aggravating it. I had a bit of ice cream Thursday night, when we ate dinner with some friends and I did just fine. What I had Saturday night was even less than that, and was on top of some cobbler, so I didn't think it would bother me at all. That leads me to believe it may have been that the cold already had my lungs irritated, so they're just more sensitive to any other irritants right now.

I am still treating the asthma and the cold naturally, avoiding medicines and using herbs and natural remedies. I did take my emergency inhaler last night, but that's the only medicine I'll take for it, and that only when I'm getting very concerned about my breathing. I'm hoping to be well enough to go downtown Friday night, but if I'm not feeling well, I'm not going to push myself. The pollen and pollution down there wouldn't be good for me. I'm probably going to use some of this down time to work on our websites, when I feel up to it.

I'm about halfway through Wuthering Heights now. It was hard to get into it, but after a few chapters, I didn't want to put it down. However, it is much darker than most classics. I was expecting something similar to Jane Austen in story and writing style. Now the closest thing I know to compare it to is The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, which is rather dark. After I finish reading it, I plan on writing a review and posting it here. I'd like to start writing more reviews of books I read and posting them here, and making a page on my blog for book and movie reviews.

That's from an awesome communitiy, bibliophyles. They're currently reading Wuthering Heights, which I've never read before. I'm a bit behind, as they started at the beginning of the month, but I'm going to start reading the book anyway and try to catch up.