Monthly Archives: June 2010

booksneeze, review

[BookSneeze] — Kaleidoscope: Seeing God’s Wit and Wisdom in a Whole New Light

I’ve been working on this book for several months, and at the end of it I find myself with a serious love/hate relationship with it.

Patsy Clairmont presents the book of Proverbs in a quirky and fun way. Each Proverb is given its own chapter (2 – 3 pages long), in which it is analyzed in a quirky way that will make you laugh and appreciate it. Then she gives the reader a series of “Bits & Pieces” questions to help bring that same Proverb into the reader’s life. At the end of the chapter, other Bible verses are given that tie it all together neatly.

What I love about this book is that it is written in such a relaxed manner. Each chapter is short and makes for a great daily devotional to start or end the day.

Like the name implies, it twists Proverbs around into a colorful display. One that is enjoyable, and will make the reader really appreciate the verse as something to apply to their own life. You’ll laugh. You’ll really think. You’ll end the book with a new thought process.

However, again as the name implies, I never felt the book had a true path. I, personally, prefer a book that makes me want to pick it up every free chance I have, because I know its going to carry on to the next level. This book felt too random, and my urge to pick it up after I set it down just didn’t exist. I found myself forcing myself to open it and read. I would appreciate it as I read it, but if I wasn’t actively reading it, I really had no urge to do so.

In the end, I would give this book a solid 3 stars out of 5. Excellent topic, and a fun approach to it. However, not a book I foresee myself reading again.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

about-me, ironic musings

Night owl

Its 4 am.

Yes, you read that right. 4 am. This is not an unusual hour for me. It’s about bed time, I suppose, and I write this from my bed. Quality time with my blog tonight, I guess you could say.

I’m a night owl. I am sure many people think this fact is due to my having married a musician who is, by profession, a night owl himself. However, I think a big part of why my husband and I ever hit it off is the simple fact that I’ve pretty much always been a night owl.

I remember back in Elementary school, I was baffled about how none of my classmates knew that at 10:30 pm, after the news, M*A*S*H came on for half an hour. Bed time was always after that show, of course, but it was perfectly normal for me to stay up to watch the show!

My classmates were all in bed by, I assumed, 8 or 9 pm. Me? I’d be up until 11 pm, mostly because there was no point to my going to bed any earlier. I wasn’t going to sleep anyway!

In high school, I was introduced to After MidNite with Blair Garner while I did homework. IF I was done with my homework, I’d still lay in bed awake until all hours listening to the radio host’s antics. If there was an artist I was really interested in being interviewed, I’d be awake until 3 am easily… waiting to hear the interview.

Now, all this being said, I’ve never been a morning person. I can remember in Elementary school, I’d get up and have cereal for breakfast. I’d build myself a fort out of cereal boxes around my bowl in an attempt to keep the light out. I already didn’t think the day should even consider starting before 10 am. At the earliest.

Somewhere along the way, I learned how to live on about 4 hours of sleep. I did that through most of college. Go to bed around 3 am. Get up by 6 or 7 am. Drive to 8 am classes. I kept this schedule up into my job at a newspaper… staying up late, though, to talk to a guy instead of to do homework.

I married that guy.

I moved to Nashville.

My night owl-ness got worse.

You can ask most of my friends here in Nashville. This fact is not unusual. It’s almost a, “Welcome to Nashville,” phenomenon.

However, its not when we go out, or if I pick up a night working downtown at the bar, that my being a night owl takes a ridiculous turn. While I’ve driven home from downtown while the sun rises, its actually when my husband goes on the road that I stay up super late. You see, sunrise offers me some sort of strange security blanket. Its like the first rays of light bring with them this sense of safety. Like I can relax and go into that vulnerable sleep-state.

I sleep as the sunrises. I wake as most go to lunch. Some days, I wake as the school bus drops off neighborhood kids. I have coffee and cereal, as they have candy bars and cokes. This is normal for me.

I try hard to adjust my schedule from time to time. I miss daylight, and I force myself up by 10 or 11 am. However, I often still stay up late after that… and I find myself sleeping even later than normal the next day to compensate! Its at times like that, that I realize that sometimes its not worth fighting the body’s natural clock. I’ll fight it when we have kids. For now, I’ll just stay a night owl.

It is what it is. And what it is now… bedtime.