July 8: William called me to tell me he was on his way home from work. 10 minutes later he called me to come get him because his car had broken down in the outside turn lane on Maitland Blvd and Maitland Ave. After a few minutes of getting screamed and cursed at (because, you know, he broke down on purpose to inconvenience people) a nice man stopped and helped him push the car through the rest of the turn and into a parking lot. Edward and I rescued William and drove home, leaving the car overnight. We returned in the morning, hoping that it would miraculously turn on. It did not. The sad old Honda was towed to our trusty mechanic.
July 12: Diagnosis day. The timing belt went and took some things with it. Cost of repairs? $1800. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. The car wasn't worth that. It stressed us both out. It would have been doable to go to being a one car family, but we would have been filling up my tank every 2 days with all the places we need to go separately. The search for a new car begins, leading to a cheap Volvo that the owner planned on charging US to repair... yeah no.
July 13: First day of having to be different places, but fortunately they were on the same side of town. The car hunt continues...
July 14: More Volvos. Craigslist. Ugh. William sells the Honda to one of those "we buy your junk car!!!" places, and our mechanic is surprised how much we got for it.
July 15: An unexpected financial gift, for which we are immensely grateful. The car search is widened from "clunker" to "functioning, with ac!"
July 16: More Volvos. Craigslist. Yay!
July 17-18: More Volvos. Decisions. Ugh/Yay!
July 19: We own a Volvo! It's in super-great condition, mechanically and aesthetically, and is quite literally the nicest car William has ever owned.
I am humbled by how quickly God provided in unexpected ways, and how much had to happen at just the right time for us to have found our new car. I am too quick to pray that God will provide and then act like I don't think He will. Next time I'm stressing out, maybe I will peek out the window at our pretty red Volvo and remember that God is bigger than me.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Books for people who love books
Over the past couple months, I’ve been making my way through the Inkheart trilogy by Cornelia Funke. Although these are marketed as children’s books, I would venture to say they aren’t for children, but they are excellent. I haven’t finished the last book yet, entitled Inkdeath, but so far it’s the same quality as the others. The premise is that there are people in the world who can literally bring the written word to life with their voices. The catch is that when something or someone is brought into this world from a book, something or someone from this world becomes trapped in that book as a trade-off. The nightmarish turn bringing a book to life takes reminds me of a scene from another great book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Caspian and crew come across one of the lost Lords on the island where dreams come true. Initially the crew thinks that’s awesome, but quickly realize the true horror of it.
An overarching theme of the series is the power of words to change lives, individually and across nations. There is also just the plot of the story, which I’d say is later Harry Potter novels levels of dark, but with American mild cursing and implied sex. There’s death, violence, and hurt, which mostly stems from the use and misuse of the power of words.
Something I think is brilliant stylistically is that the author uses quotes from literature and poetry at the opening of every chapter, which communicates her own respect for the power words can have. She’s also German, which doesn’t surprise me because these fairy tales are much more in the style of the Brothers Grimm than of Disney.
One of the most tragic scenes in the story involves book-burning. If you’ve never been friends with a book, you won’t understand why, but if books come alive when you read them, I guarantee this scene will haunt you. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter I think you will like these as well. If you love books, you will get even more out of these than if you just love an adventure story.
The movie version, btw, was terrible.
An overarching theme of the series is the power of words to change lives, individually and across nations. There is also just the plot of the story, which I’d say is later Harry Potter novels levels of dark, but with American mild cursing and implied sex. There’s death, violence, and hurt, which mostly stems from the use and misuse of the power of words.
Something I think is brilliant stylistically is that the author uses quotes from literature and poetry at the opening of every chapter, which communicates her own respect for the power words can have. She’s also German, which doesn’t surprise me because these fairy tales are much more in the style of the Brothers Grimm than of Disney.
One of the most tragic scenes in the story involves book-burning. If you’ve never been friends with a book, you won’t understand why, but if books come alive when you read them, I guarantee this scene will haunt you. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter I think you will like these as well. If you love books, you will get even more out of these than if you just love an adventure story.
The movie version, btw, was terrible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)